Film

In the near future, a small community of the Brazilian hinterland mourns the loss of their matriarch Carmelita. A few days later, people notice that their village, named Bacurau, has vanished from all the maps. Things go from bad to worse when mobile phones stop working, bodies start piling up on the roadsides, and a strange unidentified flying object starts observing the locals... But the villagers are not exactly of the passive type, and will fight back no matter what.

A winner of the last Cannes Film Festival, Bacurau ambitiously combines anthropological realism, dreamlike haze, and a particularly bloody version of the crime thriller. The gorgeous CinemaScope cinematography and the apocalyptic atmosphere make the film look like the mutant child of John Carpenter and Sergio Leone, and explores the reality of Brazil’s outcasts. Existing on the edges of sci-fi, the western and the techno-fable, Bacurau is a cutting critique of modern imperialism and of the current political situation.

The director

Kleber Mendonça Filho (1968) and Juliano Dornelles (1980) both hail from Recife. The former, who used to work as a critic, made Neighboring Sounds (2012) and Aquarius (2016), two striking studies of power, class and race. The latter has been working as a production designer since the early 2000s. After several collaborations, they directed Bacurau together, a dystopia that fully embraces its genre roots.

Cast
Carlos Francisco, Antonio Saboia, Karine Teles, Luciana Souza, Sonia Braga, Wilson Rabelo, Silvero Pereira, Bárbara Colen, Udo Kier, Rubens Santos, Thomas Aquino, Thardelly Lima
Producer
Saïd Ben Saïd, Emilie Lesclaux, Michel Merkt
Scriptwriter(S)
Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho
Cinematography
Pedro Sotero
Editing
Eduardo Serrano
Music
Mateus Alves, Tomaz Alves Souza
Contact