# Bacurau
**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)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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/) |
| 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/) |
| 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) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and premise
The 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)
The 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)
## Genre and influences
Critics 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)
[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)
## Political reading
The 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)
## Production and reception
The 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)
Reception 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)
The 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/)
## References
1. [BACURAU, Festival de Cannes film page](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/)
2. [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)
3. [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)
4. [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)
5. ["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/)
6. [Bacurau, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bacurau)
7. [Bacurau critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/bacurau/critic-reviews/)
8. ['Bacurau': Cannes Review, Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/bacurau-cannes-review/5139446.article)
9. [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)
10. ['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)
11. [Bloodbath and Beyond: the Wondrous Western Mashup Bacurau, Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/bacurau-review)
12. [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)
13. [White Supremacy and Resistance in Bacurau's Brazilian Northeast, eScholarship](https://escholarship.org/content/qt28k0z9wc/qt28k0z9wc_noSplash_213b7293d06752d29e4afcc1e3c7e56e.pdf?t=ra114z)
14. [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)
15. [Entrevista Cine Set: Kleber Mendonça Filho e Juliano Dornelles](https://cineset.com.br/entrevista-cine-set-kleber-mendonca-filho-juliano-dornelles/)
16. [A circulação crítica e política de Bacurau, Revista Rumores (USP)](https://revistas.usp.br/Rumores/article/download/217611/202051/671434)
17. [The 'Logic of Brazil,' in 160 Minutes, The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/03/the-secret-agent-brazil/686346/)
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*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*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license