Horn Maker, as plain markdown

# Horn Maker

A feature documentary directed by Juliette Marquis. Produced by GroundStorm Media. Runtime 84 minutes. Origin: USA, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Australia. Year 2026.

Canonical site: https://hornmaker.movie

> Ten years. Four continents. One radical idea.

Diving into the labyrinth of rhino horn trafficking, a filmmaker embarks on a decade-long journey to discover that tangled within the web of bureaucracy and ideology is a groundbreaking biotechnology with the potential to transform wildlife conservation.

- Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1186514646
- Festival tag: Santiago Wild Nominee · 2026
- Kicker: A documentary by Juliette Marquis

## The Film

A decade inside the third largest illegal trade on earth

Wildlife trafficking is the third largest illegal trade in the world, with rhino horns being a commodity more valuable than gold and cocaine combined. Decades and many millions have been spent to stem the flow of poaching, but still, wild rhino populations teeter on the brink of extinction.

Now, with the advent of biotechnology and DNA printing, a new idea is born. Matthew Markus, an innovator from the tech world, proposes a daring plan: use 3D printing technology to create bio-identical rhino horns to sabotage, saturate, and collapse the illegal trade by exploiting its inherent greed from within.

For nearly a decade, we followed Markus across Africa and Southeast Asia as he navigated the complexities of conservation efforts, exposing the striking contrasts in worldviews, from the deeply rooted cultural traditions and trafficking networks to the cutting-edge realm of high-tech innovations, pushing the boundaries of what it takes to preserve wildlife in the 21st century.

## Pull quote (from the film)

> Wildlife is seen as protected at the expense of the local communities who have always lived alongside it

## Director's Note

Since I was a child, these animals have moved me in ways humans rarely could

By Juliette Marquis. Director · Producer · Writer.

In the mid-2010s, the crisis of elephant and rhino poaching was escalating rapidly. They were dying in such numbers that these majestic giants were on track to go extinct within a decade. I couldn't just passively read about it anymore. What was wrong with humans? How could we be doing this, and what was being done to stop it?

As a filmmaker, I needed to investigate the heart of the matter, so I strapped on a camera and dove headfirst into the black-market supply chain, beginning with who I believed were the perpetrators: the poachers. With the help of local guides, I traveled across South Africa and Mozambique, staying for weeks with local communities and interviewing hundreds of tribesmen, local chiefs, farmers, wildlife conservationists, and government officials. The more I learned, the more it became clear that the illegal wildlife trade was an intricate web so complex that I couldn't imagine how this problem could ever be resolved. And then I learned that, at the same time, across the ocean, a scientist had an idea rooted in synthetic biology that was so revolutionary it promised to definitively break the black-market rhino-horn trade. I followed him and this story for nearly a decade as it moved from the lab to the world.

I went from the assembly halls of the U.N., where policy is negotiated, to the offices of Ministers and NGO presidents, to the villages where those policies actually land, on the people who live alongside these animals. What I found was this: the harm is not in the intent of the people doing the work, but in the shape of the system itself. Its one-size-fits-all approach is doing some of the greatest damage to our ecosystems and to the people who live inside them. Different regions carry different histories, different needs, and different relationships with the land. Conservation has to be built to meet them where they are, not the other way around.

Making this film changed me forever. In how I see the world, in how I see the systems that shape it, and in what I believe it takes for a person to move them. The road is harder than imagined. But it only begins with seeing clearly.

## Photo Essay

Savanna, desert, laboratory, market. These are the images that shaped the film.

- Kruger · South Africa: A white rhino at dusk.
- Pembe Nkwe · Mozambique: A chief explains how the word poacher lost its meaning.

## Extras

There is a mountain of footage that didn't make it into the film's final cut. We will keep adding to this archive so that some other gems can join Horn Maker on its journey.

### Essence of Rhino Horn
Category: Vietnam

Pembient is the biotech company founded by Matthew Markus to develop bio-identical rhino horn through synthetic biology. Its earliest interested customers were beauty clinics in Hanoi, where rhino horn has long been considered an ingredient that restores youth to the skin. As a first proof-of-demand product, the Pembient team developed a concept for a face cream called Essence of Rhino Horn, containing their synthesized horn powder, divorcing this key ingredient from the animal. To show how it would be sold, Pembient produced this commercial. It aired in 2015.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/extras/essence-of-rhino-horn

### Mozambique
Category: Africa

In the villages of Mozambique, we weren't treated as outsiders. Families opened their doors, shared their meals, and made space for us. Without seeing local communities as partners, no effort to protect wildlife can truly succeed.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/extras/mozambique

### Pemba
Category: Africa

Across Mozambique, I met people who wanted the things most people want: clean water, electricity, food they could grow, and the freedom to live without foreign interference in their lives. Many do not have two out of three of these things. And as communities expand into the land set aside for wildlife, they run up against the wildlife that lives there. The conflict pits two species against each other, causing deaths on both sides.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/extras/pemba

### Michael 't Sas-Rolfes Conversation
Category: Biofabrication

Michael 't Sas‑Rolfes is one of the leading global voices on the economics of the wildlife trade. Over nearly forty years at the intersection of commerce and conservation, he has become a go‑to authority on how markets and regulation shape the fate of the world's most endangered species, from rhinos and elephants to big cats and bears. A Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and the African Wildlife Economy Institute, he has accumulated close to 2,000 scholarly citations, making him one of the most influential thinkers in conservation science today.

Here is his honest assessment of the rhino conversation field as it stands today.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/extras/Michael-t-Sas-Rolfes

## News

Press, research, and dispatches from the making of the film.

### Horn Maker Nominated at Santiago Wild 2026
April 15, 2026 · Festival

The film joins the official selection at Chile's premier wildlife film festival, opening a year of festival appearances.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/news/santiago-wild-nominee

### Theoretical Analysis of a Simple Permit System for Selling Synthetic Wildlife Goods
February 1, 2021 · Research

A peer-reviewed economic model published in Ecological Economics testing the conditions under which a legal market for synthetic wildlife goods would reduce poaching, and identifying the laundering effect that conservation NGOs had been worried about as real but conditional.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/news/archive-chen-sas-rolfes-2021-permit-system

### Do Biotech Companies Have the Solution to the Rhino Poaching Problem?
July 5, 2017 · Research

An economist's analysis of the structural incentives facing biotech companies developing synthetic rhino horn, arguing that profit-maximizing behavior by these firms may undermine the conservation outcome they advertise unless policy intervenes.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/news/archive-frederick-chen-2017-biotech-rhino-poaching

### Fast Company: This New Chinese Beer Will Be Made With Fake Rhino Horn
June 17, 2015 · Press

Fast Company breaks the news of Pembient's first commercial partnership: a rhino horn beer to be released in Beijing, leveraging horn's traditional reputation as a hangover remedy.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/news/archive-fast-company-2015-chinese-beer

### The Guardian: Can We Save the Rhino From Poachers With a 3D Printer?
May 24, 2015 · Press

The Guardian profiles Pembient and its founder Matthew Markus in one of the earliest pieces of press coverage of the bio-identical horn project. Horn Maker would follow the story from here for nearly a decade.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/news/archive-the-guardian-2015-3d-printer-rhino

## Screenings

### Upcoming

- May 7, 2026 · Santiago Wild Film Festival · Santiago, Chile · https://santiagowild.com/en/check-out-the-full-program/#dia-7

## Credits

**Directed & Produced by**
Juliette Marquis

**Written by**
Juliette Marquis · Marco Gianstefani

**Edited by**
Marco Gianstefani

**Directors of Photography**
Alexander Oleynikov · Juliette Marquis · Loren Wheeler

**Produced by**
Juliette Marquis · James Keach
Andrew Troy · Elisa Bonora

**Executive Producers**
Marco Chiappa · Alessandro Casati · Francesca Cimolai
Ann Mugglebee · Camille Hardman · Jason Holdsworth
Oreet Rees · Mark Cancelliere

## Production

a GroundStorm Media production in association with

PCH Films · Troy Entertainment · Bloom Media House
Redwolf Films · Voluntas Ventures

## Press

**Logline**
TODO: one-sentence logline. Placeholder: A decade inside the rhino horn trade, and one radical idea to end it.

**Short synopsis**
TODO: one-paragraph synopsis. Placeholder: Wildlife trafficking is the third largest illegal trade in the world, with rhino horns being a commodity more valuable than gold and cocaine combined. Decades and many millions have been spent to stem the flow of poaching, but still, wild rhino populations teeter on the brink of extinction.

**Long synopsis**
TODO: full synopsis with character and theme detail. Placeholder: Wildlife trafficking is the third largest illegal trade in the world, with rhino horns being a commodity more valuable than gold and cocaine combined. Decades and many millions have been spent to stem the flow of poaching, but still, wild rhino populations teeter on the brink of extinction. Now, with the advent of biotechnology and DNA printing, a new idea is born. Matthew Markus, an innovator from the tech world, proposes a daring plan: use 3D printing technology to create bio-identical rhino horns to sabotage, saturate, and collapse the illegal trade by exploiting its inherent greed from within. For nearly a decade, we followed Markus across Africa and Southeast Asia as he navigated the complexities of conservation efforts, exposing the striking contrasts in worldviews, from the deeply rooted cultural traditions and trafficking networks to the cutting-edge realm of high-tech innovations, pushing the boundaries of what it takes to preserve wildlife in the 21st century.

**Director bio**
TODO: director biography. Placeholder: Juliette Marquis is a filmmaker based in the United States. Horn Maker is her feature documentary debut.

**Contact**
Press enquiries: info@groundstormmedia.com

## Newsletter

Festival dates, streaming announcements, and occasional dispatches from the field.

Signup form lives at https://hornmaker.movie

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