Welcome to the sertão, the semi-arid territory of northeastern Brazil where plants become warriors to survive the unsuitable climate, where raindrops boil in contact with the scorching soil, where the dead mummify due to the dryness of the air! The anachronistic community that lives here, the sertanejos, have adopted body postures and a whole culture - community rituals, superstitions, habits of life, a singular imaginary - compatible with the physical laws of this strange territory. We’ll see them working, playing music, singing, praying, trying to survive. In addition to the usual day-to-day hardships, gunfire rains down on these men’s heads and cannonballs fly!

We are in Canudos, a remote village in the north of the State of Bahia, at the end of the 19th century. The sertanejos, led by the prophet Antônio Conselheiro, are surrounded by thousands of soldiers from the army of the young Brazilian republic. The military’s aim is to capture the religious leader and dissolve the community hostile to the new regime. The war has been going on for several months, and the soldiers didn’t count on the resilience of the locals or the inhospitable nature of the place. They suffer, starve and adopt the habits of the enemy to try to survive. But the arrival of reinforcements and supplies changes the soldiers’ outlook. The time has come for a new battle, an all-out attack on the insurgents’ stronghold!

SAVAGERY is a free adaptation of Euclides da Cunha’s masterpiece, “Os Sertões”, which tells of the obscure war that took place in Bahia in 1897.