Four-time Academy Award-nominated Ethan Hawke is attached to star in “The Last of the Tribe,” a jungle thriller set in Brazil’s Amazon. Written by Mark Bailey (“Downfall,” “The Volcano”), “The Last of the Tribe” is produced by Brazil’s Academy Award-nominated Fernando Meirelles (“The Two Popes,” “City of God”) and Academy Award-winning producer Ed Saxon (“Silence of the Lambs,” “Adaptation”).
Hawke is set to play William Phelan — a washed-out Chicago cop turned corporate gun-for-hire — who finds himself in a wildly unfamiliar landscape, his assignment the murder of the last surviving member of an uncontacted Indigenous tribe.
“A broken man standing at an unlikely crossroads, Phelan is given the chance to save a life and reclaim his soul,” the film’s synopsis runs.
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Hawke will be joined by the Indigenous Brazilian actress-model Zaya Guarani, born in the Amazon’s Port Velho. Seen in Darren Aronofsky’s “Postcard From Earth,” the environmental activist has used her visibility as a fashion model to further her advocacy work on behalf of Indigenous peoples.
“In this week when Southern Brazil is flooded in the worst tragedy the country has ever experienced, Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, plans to explore oil in the Amazon. A film that talks about prioritizing commercial interests over the preservation of the world’s largest forest could not be more urgent.,” Meirelles told Variety.
“The Last of the Tribe” will be directed by Claudio Borrelli (“Vultures”), based upon the book of the same title by former Washington Post journalist Monte Reel. It is described by its makers as “genuinely global and intensely relevant,” who point out that when the last of the Tanarus tribe died in 2022, with his passing caused global dismay.
Meirelles’ São Paulo-based O2 Filmes will produce in Brazil, where the film is set. Structured as a Brazil-U.S. co-production, “The Last of the Tribe” is also produced by Ethan Hawke, Ryan Hawke and Mickey Schiff of Under the Influence Prods., as well as Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz of Chockstone Pictures (“All the Old Knives,” “The Road”).
O2 Filmes executives, including O2 Filmes’ CEO Paulo Barcellos, chief content officer Guto Gontijo and Igor Kupstas at O2 Play, O2’s distribution and sales agent arm, are in Cannes with “The Last of the Tribe,” to find partnerships, financiers and distributors.
