Bacurau
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles
A few years from now... Bacurau, a small village in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants (among them Sônia Braga) notice that their village has literally vanished from online maps and a UFO-shaped drone is seen flying overhead. There are forces that want to expel them from their homes, and soon, in a genre-bending twist, a band of armed mercenaries led by Udo Kier arrive in town picking off the inhabitants one by one. A fierce confrontation takes place when the townspeople turn the tables on the villainous outsiders, banding together by any means necessary to protect and maintain their remote community. The mercenaries just may have met their match in the fed-up, resourceful denizens of little Bacurau.
Reviews
"Critic's Pick! Exhilarating. A heart-thumping political allegory that tips its hat to masters like John Carpenter."
"[A] boldly inventive political fantasy... offers a thrillingly imaginative playbook for resistance."
"A gloriously demented (and lightly psychedelic) Western."
"A genre-busting entertainment that is at once a portrait of a community, a horror thriller and a timely piece of political filmmaking. Bacurau is one of those movies like Parasite... where you're never quite sure which way it's heading."
“Utterly distinctive filmmaking, executed with ruthless clarity and force. A scream of satirical defiance. This is not just fantasy, not just symbolism – it is the shape of things to come.”
"A modern-day western with some of the raw, hallucinatory power of a Sergio Leone epic. Rich and extremely filling."
“Feels like a favorite Gabriel García Márquez novel crossed with a Sergio Leone spaghetti western.”
"A perfect blend of blistering social commentary and illicit genre-flick thrills."
Awards
Jury Prize – Cannes Film Festival
Official Selection – New York Film Festival
Official Selection – Toronto International Film Festival