Bacurau

(Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019, Brazil/France, 131 minutes)

The massive success of director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s new film The Secret Agent affords us opportunity to do something we’ve wanted to do for years: Put his 2019 film, Bacurau, on Winifred Moore’s screen. (Or any big screen in St. Louis, for that matter; this marks its much-belated local theatrical premiere.) Originally set to open in American theatres in late March 2020, at which time the Webster Film Series was in talks to play it, of course the pandemic scuttled those plans and this brilliant piece of work has mostly been seen on TVs or not at all. A ‘socialist western’ per A.S. Hamrah at The Baffler, Bacurau is named for a small, rural Brazilian town whose matriarch dies and thereby sets in motion a string of unusual events. Pitting Sônia Braga (Filho’s Aquarius, Babenco’s Kiss of the Spider Woman) against the legendary Udo Kier (last on our screen in Flesh for Frankenstein), who sadly passed in November 2025, Bacurau is the perfect next step for all of you who loved The Secret Agent.

In English and Portuguese with English subtitles.

You may also like the following events from Webster University Film Series:

• Next Tuesday, 27th January, 07:00 pm, Quartet in Webster Groves
• Next Thursday, 29th January, 07:00 pm, Ishtar in Webster Groves
• Next Friday, 30th January, 07:00 pm, Camille Claudel in Webster Groves

Also check out other Entertainment events in Webster Groves, Workshops in Webster Groves, Arts events in Webster Groves.