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. 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

### 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

### 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

### 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

## News

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

### CITES: when wildlife products count as “parts and derivatives”
November 25, 2022 · Research

This 2022 update under CITES says that if a product looks, on paper or in context, like it comes from a protected species, it should be treated as a regulated wildlife part or derivative. That now explicitly covers biotech‑made products too.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/cites-when-wildlife-products-count-as-parts-and-derivatives

### BuzzFeed: WWF’s ‘sorrow’ after abuse review
November 25, 2020 · Press

BuzzFeed’s November 2020 follow‑up covers the 160‑page independent review WWF commissioned after being accused of funding abusive rangers. Led by former UN rights chief Navi Pillay, the panel corroborated patterns of torture, rape, and killings in WWF‑backed parks in Nepal, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, and the DRC.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/buzzfeed-wwf-s-sorrow-after-abuse-review

### Evidence or Delusion: A Critique of Contemporary Rhino Horn Demand Reduction Strategies
September 5, 2020 · Research

Published in Human Dimensions of Wildlife in September 2020, Dang Vu and Nielsen systematically dismantled the evidential basis of five major NGO campaigns targeting rhino horn consumption. Their core finding: most campaigns were built on assumptions, not evidence, and the flagship claim, that rhino horn is medically worthless, does not withstand scientific scrutiny.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-dang-vu-nielsen-2020-evidence-or-delusion

### OECD: global money flows for biodiversity
April 1, 2020 · Research

The OECD’s 2020 report estimates global biodiversity finance at roughly $78–91 billion a year, against about $500 billion in public support that harms biodiversity. It tracks who pays, how, and through which instruments, from domestic budgets and ODA to offsets and philanthropy.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/oecd-global-money-flows-for-biodiversity

### BuzzFeed: US money behind WWF-linked abuses
September 24, 2019 · Press

BuzzFeed’s 2019 investigation traced roughly $157 million in US government grants to WWF, including around $10 million for armed guards and enforcement. The story triggered a review of $125 million in conservation grants and was entered into the House Natural Resources Committee record.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-buzzfeed-2019-us-government-millions-wwf-torture-murder

### Upworthy: recycling the "veteran hunts poachers" story, years too late
April 8, 2019 · Press

This Upworthy piece, dated 2019, repackages the "kill some bad guys and do some good" framing that helped sink Vetpaw's 2015 Tanzania deployment. It is part of a pattern: viral hero stories about US veterans "hunting poachers" in Africa that keep circulating online long after the projects have collapsed.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/upworthy-recycling-the-veteran-hunts-poachers-story-years-too-late

### BuzzFeed: Rangers, torture and WWF’s enforcement machine
March 4, 2019 · Press

A yearlong investigation across six countries documented how WWF helped fund, equip and politically shield anti‑poaching units that villagers accused of torture, sexual assault and murder. It exposed weapons deals, informant networks and village raids that sat behind the charity’s panda logo.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/buzzfeed-rangers-torture-and-wwf-s-enforcement-machine

### Request for Enforcement of the Washington Animal Trafficking Act
February 12, 2018 · Research

The HSUS, HSI, and the Humane Society Legislative Fund jointly petitioned the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to investigate Pembient for alleged violations of the Washington Animal Trafficking Act, arguing that bioengineered rhino horn falls within the Act's prohibition on selling, offering to sell, or distributing covered animal parts and products.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-hsus-2018-wata-enforcement-request

### Star Tribune: traffickers process horn in South Africa to evade detection
September 30, 2017 · Press

The Star Tribune covers a Traffic analysis showing that traffickers are increasingly running clandestine horn workshops in South Africa, turning whole horns into beads, bracelets, and powder before shipping to Asia. The shift makes detection harder and signals both a move toward luxury products and a workaround for tighter border enforcement.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/star-tribune-traffickers-process-horn-in-south-africa-to-evade-detection

### BBC: rhino horn rebranded as jewellery
September 19, 2017 · Press

The BBC’s 2017 piece follows Traffic’s warning that smugglers are turning rhino horn into beads, bangles and powder to evade airport checks, as demand shifts from supposed medicine to luxury status items in China and Vietnam.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/bbc-rhino-horn-rebranded-as-jewellery

### The Economist: State‑sponsored quackery and the cost to wildlife
August 31, 2017 · Press

In 2019 The Economist described how China is rebuilding Traditional Chinese Medicine as a state project: subsidised hospitals, export campaigns, political theatre. It also traced the collateral damage, from endangered wildlife to the politics that keep TCM above scientific scrutiny.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-economist-2017-china-tcm-promotion

### HeraldLIVE: record rhino killings in KwaZulu‑Natal
August 29, 2017 · Press

By August 2017, poaching gangs had killed 166 rhinos in KwaZulu‑Natal, already surpassing the previous year’s total and setting a record killing rate of one rhino every 32 hours in the province that once pulled the species back from extinction.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/heraldlive-record-rhino-killings-in-kwazulu-natal

### Pembient: PembiCoin, or how to tokenize biofabricated horn
August 23, 2017 · Research

Two days after John Hume's legal horn auction launched, Pembient sent a newsletter framing PembiCoin as the substitute alternative. Both camps claim legal supply will save rhinos; they disagree fundamentally on whether that supply should be real or biofabricated. This is the sharpest moment in the archive where the two strategies speak past each other in real time.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/pembient-pembicoin-or-how-to-tokenize-biofabricated-horn

### National Geographic:  the first legal horn auction goes live
August 22, 2017 · Press

National Geographic frames the auction as a test case in private rhino ranching, legal markets, and the question of whether farmed horn can compete with black‑market supply. Critics worry about leakage, Hume argues legal supply will drive down prices, and the government promises tracking systems will keep horn from crossing borders.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/national-geographic-the-first-legal-horn-auction-goes-live

### Al Jazeera: South Africa’s first online rhino horn auction
August 21, 2017 · Press

Al Jazeera’s 2017 piece tracks how breeder John Hume opened a three-day online rhino horn sale in South Africa, run through Vans Auctioneers and restricted to permit holders, after a court ruling lifted the domestic trade ban. It captures the mechanics and politics of the first legal auction of its kind.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/al-jazeera-south-africa-s-first-online-rhino-horn-auction

### AFP / Guardian Nigeria: South Africa signs off on horn auction
August 20, 2017 · Press

An AFP dispatch carried by Guardian Nigeria reports that South Africa’s environment ministry has cleared breeder John Hume’s online rhino horn auction to proceed under strict permit rules. It quotes Hume’s lawyer on the court battle and Edna Molewa on the government’s conditions, framing the sale as a regional conservation story, not just a domestic legal spat.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/afp-guardian-nigeria-south-africa-signs-off-on-horn-auction

### Reuters: court orders South Africa to hand over horn‑auction permit
August 18, 2017 · Press

In August 2017 a South African court instructed the government to give breeder John Hume the permit he needed to auction about 500 kilograms of rhino horn domestically. The ruling sits at the hinge between the lifted moratorium, the first online auction, and fears that “legal” horn would leak into Asian markets.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/reuters-court-orders-south-africa-to-hand-over-horn-auction-permit

### Times Live: the rules behind South Africa’s 2017 horn auction
August 18, 2017 · Press

In August 2017, Edna Molewa announced strict conditions for any rhino horn auction held within South Africa, including buyer permits, microchipping, and proof that horn would remain in the country. Her statement shows how the state tried to contain a court‑ordered reopening of domestic trade.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/times-live-the-rules-behind-south-africa-s-2017-horn-auction

### Washington Post: horn as art investment, not just medicine
April 15, 2017 · Press

Karin Brulliard reports on research that compared Chinese and English‑language coverage of rhino horn demand. Western outlets stressed traditional medicine 84 percent of the time; Chinese outlets focused on horn as art and investment 79 percent of the time. The gap matters for how conservation campaigns are designed and where they aim.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/washington-post-horn-as-art-investment-not-just-medicine

### Rhino Horn Trade in China: An Analysis of the Art and Antiques Market
August 1, 2016 · Research

Yale researchers analysed 14 years of Chinese media and 7,000 auction records to show that investment and collectible value, not medicine, drove Chinese rhino horn demand. The finding directly contradicted the strategic premise of every major NGO campaign then operating. Almost no one in conservation or the press paid attention.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-gao-et-al-2016-china-rhino-horn-art-antiques

### Swara: tracking rhino horn prices from Kenya poachers to Chinese retail
July 1, 2016 · Research

Vigne and Martin trace horn through the supply chain: from Kenyan poaching gangs paid $2,150 per kilogram in 2015, through East African and Chinese brokers, to Vietnamese workshops carving bangles and pendants for mainland Chinese buyers, to secretive retail sales in China at up to $248 per gram. The data shows a market that has moved almost entirely underground and online.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/swara-tracking-rhino-horn-prices-from-kenya-poachers-to-chinese-retail

### IUCN at Bellagio: synthetic biology meets conservation politics
March 1, 2016 · Research

In December 2015, IUCN gathered conservation scientists, lawyers, and synthetic biology practitioners at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Their report became a reference point for how mainstream conservation bodies think about gene drives, wildlife substitution, and synthetic biology more broadly.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-iucn-2015-bellagio-synthetic-biology-meeting-report

### Conservation Groups Urge Obama Administration to Ban Synthetic Rhinoceros Horn
February 10, 2016 · Press

Conservation groups WildAid and the Center for Biological Diversity urged the Obama administration to ban “synthetic” rhino horn, warning that lab‑made, genetically engineered horn sold into China and Vietnam could fuel demand, enable laundering of real horn, and undermine hard‑won progress in reducing consumption.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-cbd-wildaid-2016-petition-press-release

### National Geographic: Petition Seeks Ban on Trade in Fake Rhino Horn
February 10, 2016 · Press

National Geographic exclusive on the formal petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and WildAid asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban the trade in bioengineered rhino horn.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-national-geographic-2016-petition-ban-fake-horn

### Breaking The Brand: what “demand reduction” really means
January 1, 2016 · Research

Breaking The Brand dissects how little money and attention go to true rhino horn demand reduction, distinguishing between awareness, education and campaigns that actually trigger users to stop. It warns that inflated claims about “billions spent” hand useful talking points to pro‑trade lobbyists.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/breaking-the-brand-what-demand-reduction-really-means

### Smithsonian: Rhinoplasticity
November 1, 2015 · Press

In November 2015, the Smithsonian gave Pembient its most prestigious platform of the year, running Markus's market-flooding strategy under the headline "Rhinoplasty." Unlike the conservation press, it didn't treat synthetic horn as a controversy. It put it alongside drones and horn-poisoning as a real option.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-smithsonian-2015-rhinoplasticity

### Al Jazeera America: when militarised anti‑poaching backfires in Tanzania
September 2, 2015 · Press

Tom A. Peter's Al Jazeera America piece traces the full arc of Vetpaw's Tanzania deployment: a year of preparation, weeks of productive ranger training, a viral social‑media storm around Kinessa Johnson's "kill some bad guys" quote, and a government expulsion that shut the project down before it could prove itself.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/al-jazeera-america-when-militarised-anti-poaching-backfires-in-tanzania

### Reddit r/IAmA: We're the Founders of Pembient
June 22, 2015 · Research

Markus and Bonaci take questions on r/IAmA two months after the press cluster. The thread is one of the only times the founders address the public at length in their own words, outside the framing of conservation reporting.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-reddit-iama-2015-pembient-founders

### 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/dossier/archive-fast-company-2015-chinese-beer

### Tactical Sht: Vetpaw asked to leave Tanzania
May 8, 2015 · Press

This 2015 piece traces how Vetpaw, a small US veterans organization training anti‑poaching rangers in Tanzania, was told to leave the country after comments about “killing bad guys” and heavily armed promo images sparked backlash and a government response.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/tactical-sht-vetpaw-asked-to-leave-tanzania

### TechCrunch: Biotech Startup Pembient Is Making Rhino Horns, Sans Rhino
April 27, 2015 · Press

The earliest of the 2015 cluster, framed Pembient through IndieBio and the biotech-on-a-budget moment. Published two days before New Scientist and a month before The Guardian, it gave Pembient its first major platform from the tech press: optimistic, solution-focused, with no conservation framing.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-techcrunch-2015-pembient-sans-rhino

### Tom Ellis to IndieBio: the synthetic horn idea needs conservationist buy‑in or it will backfire
February 1, 2015 · Research

Ellis, a senior lecturer in synthetic biology, tells IndieBio accelerator head Ryan Bethencourt that he has heard the synthetic horn idea twice before and "smart people never normally take it that far" because it collapses as soon as RRI experts engage with conservationists. He warns that Pembient cannot legitimately proceed without WWF‑level backing.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/tom-ellis-to-indiebio-the-synthetic-horn-idea-needs-conservationist-buy-in-or-it-will-backfire

### Pembient WHite Paper: Role of Biofabricated Horn in Addressing the Illegal Wildlife Trade
February 1, 2015 · Research

This white paper from Pembient’s founder lays out a bold proposal: grow rhino horn in the lab so convincingly that poachers and buyers can no longer tell it from wild horn. By applying Akerlof’s “market for lemons” idea, the paper argues that cheap, indistinguishable synthetic horn could drive prices down and eventually make poaching uneconomic, even if people keep wanting rhino horn.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-markus-2016-afrsg-biofabricated-horn-white-paper

### Pembient: Vietnam rhino horn user survey, April 2014
April 11, 2014 · Research

In April 2014, Pembient commissioned a 480‑person survey in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang targeting affluent adults. The results showed higher self‑reported horn use than previous studies, identified "improve sex life" as the top motivation, and found that two‑fifths of respondents were open to synthetic horn. This data became the empirical anchor for Pembient's substitution thesis.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/pembient-vietnam-rhino-horn-user-survey-april-2014

### Pachyderm: why chemical horn infusion does not deter poaching
February 1, 2014 · Research

Sam Ferreira and colleagues tested the Rhino Rescue Project's infusion method and found that the dye did not penetrate the horn, that the chemicals posed little risk to end users, and that the approach created market dynamics that could increase poaching rather than reduce it. They conclude that horn infusion is "not a poaching deterrent but an ineffective deception."

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/pachyderm-why-chemical-horn-infusion-does-not-deter-poaching

### 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/screenings/santiago-wild-nominee

### THE PAPER TRAIL
September 18, 2020 · Research

A formal U.S. government memo from September 2020 suspended conservation grants after finding taxpayer funds had been linked to murder, rape, and torture of indigenous people. WWF, the sector's dominant player, received $333 million over 15 years and was repeatedly cited in the findings.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/the-paper-trail

### New Scientist: 3D Printed Horns May Put Rhinos at Greater Risk of Extinction
May 9, 2015 · Press

Days after Pembient's prototype announcement, New Scientist became the first major science outlet to frame synthetic rhino horn as a threat, not a breakthrough. The piece introduced TRAFFIC's Crawford Allan and Save Vietnam's Wildlife founder Nguyen Van Thai, who became the template voices of institutional opposition.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-new-scientist-2015-printed-rhino-horn

### On Making a Film About the Impossible
March 28, 2026 · Press

Juliette Marquis speaks with Documentary Magazine about the decade-long journey behind Horn Maker.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/director-interview

### Horn Maker Enters Post-Production
February 10, 2026 · Press

After ten years and four continents, the film reaches its final cut ahead of the 2026 festival run.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/decade-of-filming

### 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/dossier/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/dossier/archive-frederick-chen-2017-biotech-rhino-poaching

### Grinding Rhino Undercover Investigation
July 1, 2017 · Research

The public report from Operation Red Cloud, an eleven-month undercover field investigation into the rhino horn supply chain in China and Vietnam, was conducted by the Earth League International between 2016 and 2017.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-eal-2017-grinding-rhino-operation-red-cloud

### TRAFFIC: Synthetic Biology, Product Substitution and the Battle Against Illegal Wildlife Trade
April 1, 2016 · Research

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network whose senior staff had been quoted publicly opposing Pembient since 2015, lays out the organization's first long-form analytical position on whether synthetic substitutes can play any role in conservation strategy.

Detail page: https://hornmaker.movie/dossier/archive-traffic-2016-synthetic-biology-substitution

### 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/dossier/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 news, new releases, and dispatches from the field. Sent when there is something worth sending.

Signup form lives at https://hornmaker.movie

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