Yanuni Trailer – Indigenous Leader Fights for Her People in Leonardo Dicaprio Produced Documentary

From director Richard Ladkani and producer Leonardo Dicaprio, the documentary Yanuni centers on Juma Xipaia, the first female Indigenous chief from the Xipaya territory in Brazil, whose life becomes both a frontline and a battleground.

Alongside her is Hugo Loss, a former Special Forces ranger turned environmental defender, and their personal struggle intensifies when Juma learns she is pregnant—bringing even more stakes to her already dangerous mission.

Yanuni premiered as the closing film of Tribeca Film Festival; and went on to screen at Sheffield DocFest lineup, where it was presented in the International Competition section. It is expected to be released in late 2025/early 2026.

Yanuni is a cinematic portrait of Juma Xipaia, an Indigenous chief from the Brazilian Amazon who rises from a remote village to the frontlines of climate justice. After surviving six assassination attempts, she is appointed Brazil’s first Secretary of Indigenous Rights—while her husband, a federal IBAMA agent, leads dangerous operations against illegal gold miners. As Juma navigates political power, growing threats, and impending motherhood, she is forced to confront the personal cost of resistance. At once intimate and epic, Yanuni is a powerful story of Indigenous sovereignty, love, and the urgent fight to protect the planet we call home.

Describing the film as ‘a thrilling, romantic documentary about Brazil’s fight for Indigenous land,’ Variety in their review wrote, “Yanuni begins with flashes of violence wrought upon Indigenous tribes, but it gradually refashions violent imagery through an anticolonial lens. In the process, it captures a hopeful, revolutionary spirit, but it grounds these notions within the poetry of nature, through some of the most enrapturing, awe-inspiring landscape photography this side of Ron Fricke and Godfrey Reggio.”

Watch the trailer for Yanuni above.