Sequestrada, the debut feature by climate-change expert and producer Sabrina McCormick, co-directed by Soopum Sohn, starring and executive produced by Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), and also starring Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire) will be released in theaters in November via Outsider Pictures and Strand Releasing.
The timely and urgent environmental thriller on the devastation of the Brazilian Amazon opens on Friday, November 15 at Village East Cinema in New York City, followed by its VOD release on Tuesday, December 17.
Sequestrada follows Kamodjara and her father, Cristiano, members of the Arara, an Amazonian indigenous tribe. When they leave their reservation to protest a dam that will displace their people, Kamodjara is separated from her family and kidnapped by traffickers.
Roberto, an indigenous agency bureaucrat overseeing a report that could change everything, is under pressure to support the dam’s construction. Thomas, an American investor in the dam, makes his way to Brazil to sway Roberto’s opinion. The film tells the story of how these three lives intertwine against a backdrop of geopolitics and environmental disaster.
Sequestrada was shot on location in Brazil and is based on the real-life event of the construction of the Belo Monte Dam, which is displacing the Arara—who have lived along the Amazon River for countless generations. The film, which had its world premiere at the Beijing Film Festival last April, deftly incorporates the experiences of local non-professional actors to tell a gripping local story of global consequences.
The film stars Kamodjara Xipia de Ferreira (Kamodjara), Tim Blake Nelson (Thomas), Marcelo Olinto (Roberto), Gretchen Mol (Grace), Cristiano G. Nascimento (Father), Andressa Yudja (Mother).
Sabrina McCormick (writer and director) was producer and associate producer on segments of the Showtime series, The Years of Living Dangerously, which won the Emmy for Best Documentary Series in 2014. Her award-winning first documentary film, No Family History (2009), accompanied the publication of her first book by the same title, and follows a woman with breast cancer struggling to find out what caused her illness. Funded by the National Science Foundation, she co-directed After the Cap, the only interactive documentary about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Her narrative shorts, A Good Egg and FracKtured, have been seen at festivals across the country. She is Associate Professor at George Washington University.
Soopum Sohn (co-writer and co-director) is a Korean-American writer/director and cinematographer whose short and feature-length works have been presented at the Cannes Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Busan International Film Festival. His short film Island to Island was the recipient of a Student Academy Award. He teaches film as an associate professor at Long Island University.