The film is screening as part of our LC Barreto: 60 Years of Brazilian Film Production programme, in partnership with the ICA.

An adaptation of João Guimarães Rosa’s Sagarana—a haunting short story collection about people of the sertão in the southeastern Brazil state of Minas Gerais—Roberto Santos’s Cinema Novo western follows the mythical “hero’s journey” of Augusto Matraga (Leonardo Villar), a violent farmer who is betrayed by his wife and left for dead. After he is rescued by a pair of farmers, Matraga devotes his life to contrition until the opportunity for revenge arrives. Featuring a superb score by Geraldo Vandré, The Hour and Turn of Augusto Matraga is a lyrical revenge film that foregrounds faith and spiritualism.