A mythological Brazilian town falls under attack from invading forces in this explosive, Cannes Jury Prize-winning genre cocktail of sci-fi western and action-packed colonial allegory from the director of Aquarius.

In the very near future, the tiny Brazilian town of Bacurau – perched somewhere between the sertão and a distant land of fable – mourns the death of its fiery matriarch, Carmelita (Sonia Braga), and the locals soon start to notice some very strange things going down. The water supply has been cut off, the community is disappearing from maps, and… is that a UFO hovering ominously over the town outskirts?

When a sinister army of foreigners – with the great Udo Kier in a rousing late-career supporting turn – descends upon Bacurau, all hell soon breaks loose, and co-directors Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius, MIFF 2016; Neighbouring Sounds, MIFF 2012) and Juliano Dornelles lean full-tilt into a wild, politically impassioned genre showdown that mixes kinetic action, widescreen Western, psychedelica, and a healthy nod to John Carpenter.

“Bacurau succeeds as a stingingly personal missive aimed squarely at Brazil’s right-wing president…But it’s also a crowd-pleaser that celebrates lovemaking, body positivity, and liberal use of psychotropic drugs, a plenty righteous message for a violent world.” – Slant