{ "id": "epzmetmfpr", "slug": "bacurau", "title": "Bacurau", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure", "label": "Action and adventure films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-1980-onward", "label": "Westerns, 1980 onward", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-1980-onward" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Latin America and the Caribbean · 2001 to 2020: Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "path": [ { "id": "geo.latam", "label": "Latin America and the Caribbean", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam" }, { "id": "geo.latam.t2001", "label": "Latin America and the Caribbean · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.latam.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.latam.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Bacurau (2019) is a Brazilian-French weird western directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, starring Sônia Braga and Udo Kier; a sertão village erased from maps fights mercenaries, winning the Cannes Jury Prize.", "snippet": "Bacurau (2019) is a Brazilian-French weird western directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, starring Sônia Braga and Udo Kier; a sertão village erased from maps fights mercenaries, winning the Cannes Jury Prize.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-1980-onward", "markdown": "# Bacurau\n\n**Bacurau** is a 2019 Brazilian-French feature film co-written and co-directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, set in a near future in which a small village in the Brazilian sertão (arid backcountry interior of northeastern Brazil) is erased from digital maps and besieged by foreign mercenaries.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/) The film mixes the Western, science fiction, and horror, and won the Jury Prize at the 72nd Festival de Cannes in 2019, shared with Ladj Ly's *[Les Misérables](https://www.edgepedia.org/les-miserables-2019-film)*.[2](https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/cultura-e-lazer/cinema/noticia/2019/05/filmes-brasileiros-bacurau-e-a-vida-invisivel-de-euridice-gusmao-sao-premiados-no-festival-de-cannes-cjw5hynka003501s9qf94yb4p.html)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Directors and writers | Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, his longtime production designer, co-directing for the first time[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/) • [3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western) |\n| Production | Brazil and France, 2019, 132 minutes; produced by Cinemascópio Produções and Arte France Cinéma, with co-producers Globo Filmes, Canal Brasil, Telecine Productions, and Símio Filmes[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/) • [4](https://bases.cinemateca.org.br/cgi-bin/wxis.exe/iah/?IsisScript=iah%2Fiah.xis&base=FILMOGRAFIA&exprSearch=ID%3D050427&format=detailed.pft&lang=p&nextAction=lnk) |\n| Principal cast | Sônia Braga as Domingas, Udo Kier as Michael, Bárbara Colen as Teresa, Thomas Aquino as Pacote, Silvero Pereira as Lunga[4](https://bases.cinemateca.org.br/cgi-bin/wxis.exe/iah/?IsisScript=iah%2Fiah.xis&base=FILMOGRAFIA&exprSearch=ID%3D050427&format=detailed.pft&lang=p&nextAction=lnk) |\n| Cannes award | Jury Prize (ex-aequo), 72nd Festival de Cannes, 25 May 2019[2](https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/cultura-e-lazer/cinema/noticia/2019/05/filmes-brasileiros-bacurau-e-a-vida-invisivel-de-euridice-gusmao-sao-premiados-no-festival-de-cannes-cjw5hynka003501s9qf94yb4p.html) |\n| Brazilian release | 29 August 2019; about 700,000 Brazilian spectators[5](https://cinemax.rtp.pt/artigos/bacurau-o-filme-brasileiro-premiado-em-cannes-que-nao-encontra-distribuicao-em-portugal/) |\n| Critical reception | 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 169 reviews and 84% from audiences; a Metascore of 82 on Metacritic[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bacurau) • [7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/bacurau/critic-reviews/) |\n| Setting | A fictional one-street village in the arid sertão of northeastern Brazil, a few years from now[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/) • [8](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/bacurau-cannes-review/5139446.article) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and premise\n\nThe story opens a few years from now. The village of Bacurau mourns its matriarch [Carmelita](https://www.edgepedia.org/carmelita), who lived to be 94. Days later, the inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from online maps and satellite imagery, and a UFO-shaped drone appears overhead.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bacurau) Mobile signal disappears, the water supply comes under pressure, and corpses begin to appear.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western) A band of armed mercenaries led by Michael ([Udo Kier](https://www.edgepedia.org/udo-kier)) arrives and begins picking off inhabitants one by one; the townspeople eventually turn the tables and band together to defend their community.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bacurau)\n\nThe village itself is portrayed as a tight-knit community standing firm against external threats, including a corrupt mayor who trades out-of-date food for votes.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western) The directors describe the community as deliberately eclectic, made up of white, indigenous, and black residents, gay and trans people, doctors, teachers, and outlaws, and they cast many non-professional actors from nearby villages.[9](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/lff-63-kleber-mendonca-filho-bacurau)\n\n## Genre and influences\n\nCritics consistently read the film as a weird western, a mode that mixes the Western with science fiction or horror, transplanted to the Brazilian backcountry.[10](https://www.nme.com/reviews/film-reviews/bacurau-review-gore-splattered-weird-western-is-bonkers-in-the-best-way-2634021) Screen Daily also notes a nod to the Brazilian cangaço (bandit) films of the 1950s and 1960s.[8](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/bacurau-cannes-review/5139446.article) Vanity Fair describes it as a mashup of American westerns and the politically engaged Brazilian cinema of the 1960s associated with [Glauber Rocha](https://www.edgepedia.org/glauber-rocha) and Nelson Pereira dos Santos.[11](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/bacurau-review)\n\n[John Carpenter](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-carpenter) looms large among the references: the village school is named João Carpinteiro after him, and his electronic track \"Night\" scores one sinister scene.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western) Mendonça Filho, a former film critic, has said the film's premise of western tourists hunting Brazilian villagers grew out of watching ethno-documentaries at a festival in 2009 and objecting to how they looked at \"simple\" people from faraway places; he summarized the film's reversal as \"cowboys and Indians, except the cowboys are the Indians, and the Indians are the cowboys.\"[9](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/lff-63-kleber-mendonca-filho-bacurau)\n\n## Political reading\n\nThe near-future setting gives the film a science-fiction filter while it engages with contemporary Brazil. Reviewers connected it to the country's social divisions, the marginalization of the rural Northeast, and the government of [Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.edgepedia.org/jair-bolsonaro), though the directors said the project predated the 2018 presidential election and had been in development for about a decade.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western) • [12](https://www.uai.com.br/app/noticia/cinema/2019/08/29/noticias-cinema%2C250857/amp.html) Screen Daily called it \"a capsule example of the economic colonisation of Brazil by the US and Europe, and of American cultural dominance.\"[8](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/bacurau-cannes-review/5139446.article) Scholarship has examined the film's engagement with white supremacy and resistance in the Brazilian Northeast, and the fictional village is based on a quilombo, a settlement formed by escaped African slaves.[9](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/lff-63-kleber-mendonca-filho-bacurau) • [13](https://escholarship.org/content/qt28k0z9wc/qt28k0z9wc_noSplash_213b7293d06752d29e4afcc1e3c7e56e.pdf?t=ra114z)\n\n## Production and reception\n\nThe film premiered at Cannes on 15 May 2019, where its gala screening drew seven minutes of applause, and it competed for the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor).[14](https://gshow.globo.com/cultura-pop/famosos/noticia/festival-de-cannes-2019-bacurau-com-sonia-braga-recebe-7-minutos-de-aplausos-em-exibicao.ghtml) • [1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/) The production credits state that it created about 800 jobs.[15](https://cineset.com.br/entrevista-cine-set-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles/) It was released commercially in Brazil on 29 August 2019 and reached English-speaking markets in early 2020.[5](https://cinemax.rtp.pt/artigos/bacurau-o-filme-brasileiro-premiado-em-cannes-que-nao-encontra-distribuicao-em-portugal/) • [16](https://revistas.usp.br/Rumores/article/download/217611/202051/671434)\n\nReception was strongly positive in the aggregate. Rotten Tomatoes records a 93% Tomatometer across 169 reviews and an 84% audience score; Metacritic assigns a Metascore of 82, labeled \"universal acclaim.\"[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bacurau) • [7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/bacurau/critic-reviews/) Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it a \"sensational genre whatsit,\" and Vanity Fair's reviewer wrote that the film \"doesn't merely reflect\" the legacy of the American Western but \"outdoes it.\"[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/bacurau/critic-reviews/) Some critics were more reserved: [Sight and Sound](https://www.edgepedia.org/sight-and-sound)'s first-look review found the shifts in tone occasionally overloaded and the mercenary characters underwritten as a group, though it praised Udo Kier's performance.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western)\n\nThe film's standing has endured in Brazilian cinema. Mendonça Filho's later feature *The Secret Agent* (2025) returned him to Cannes, with retrospectives describing *Bacurau* as the film that won him the Jury Prize and marked his turn from social realism toward genre filmmaking.[17](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/03/the-secret-agent-brazil/686346/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [BACURAU, Festival de Cannes film page](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/)\n2. [Filmes brasileiros \"Bacurau\" e \"A Vida Invisível de Eurídice Gusmão\" são premiados no Festival de Cannes, GZH](https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/cultura-e-lazer/cinema/noticia/2019/05/filmes-brasileiros-bacurau-e-a-vida-invisivel-de-euridice-gusmao-sao-premiados-no-festival-de-cannes-cjw5hynka003501s9qf94yb4p.html)\n3. [Bacurau first look: a way out weird western for menacing times, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/bacurau-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles-way-out-weird-brazilian-western)\n4. [FILMOGRAFIA - BACURAU, Cinemateca Brasileira](https://bases.cinemateca.org.br/cgi-bin/wxis.exe/iah/?IsisScript=iah%2Fiah.xis&base=FILMOGRAFIA&exprSearch=ID%3D050427&format=detailed.pft&lang=p&nextAction=lnk)\n5. [\"Bacurau\": o filme brasileiro premiado em Cannes que não encontra distribuição em Portugal, RTP Cinemax](https://cinemax.rtp.pt/artigos/bacurau-o-filme-brasileiro-premiado-em-cannes-que-nao-encontra-distribuicao-em-portugal/)\n6. [Bacurau, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bacurau)\n7. [Bacurau critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/bacurau/critic-reviews/)\n8. ['Bacurau': Cannes Review, Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/bacurau-cannes-review/5139446.article)\n9. [Brazil in a Black Mirror: how Bacurau turns the western on its head, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/lff-63-kleber-mendonca-filho-bacurau)\n10. ['Bacurau' review: gore-splattered 'weird Western' is bonkers in the best way, NME](https://www.nme.com/reviews/film-reviews/bacurau-review-gore-splattered-weird-western-is-bonkers-in-the-best-way-2634021)\n11. [Bloodbath and Beyond: the Wondrous Western Mashup Bacurau, Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/bacurau-review)\n12. [Parceria de diretores de 'Bacurau' começou em 2004, UAI](https://www.uai.com.br/app/noticia/cinema/2019/08/29/noticias-cinema%2C250857/amp.html)\n13. [White Supremacy and Resistance in Bacurau's Brazilian Northeast, eScholarship](https://escholarship.org/content/qt28k0z9wc/qt28k0z9wc_noSplash_213b7293d06752d29e4afcc1e3c7e56e.pdf?t=ra114z)\n14. [Festival de Cannes 2019: 'Bacurau' recebe 7 minutos de aplausos, Gshow](https://gshow.globo.com/cultura-pop/famosos/noticia/festival-de-cannes-2019-bacurau-com-sonia-braga-recebe-7-minutos-de-aplausos-em-exibicao.ghtml)\n15. [Entrevista Cine Set: Kleber Mendonça Filho e Juliano Dornelles](https://cineset.com.br/entrevista-cine-set-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles/)\n16. [A circulação crítica e política de Bacurau, Revista Rumores (USP)](https://revistas.usp.br/Rumores/article/download/217611/202051/671434)\n17. [The 'Logic of Brazil,' in 160 Minutes, The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/03/the-secret-agent-brazil/686346/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Westerns, 1980 onward*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Bacurau\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Bacurau](https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau](https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Bacurau\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/bacurau. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Bacurau is a Brazilian-French weird western directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, starring Sônia Braga and Udo Kier; a sertão village erased from maps fights mercenaries, winning the Cannes Jury Prize." }