A sensational critical success, Zama marks Lucrecia Martel’s triumphant return to the screen after a long hiatus. Set on the outer frontiers of the Spanish Empire during the last decade of the 18th century, Zama pushes traditional notions of a colonial adventure tale to its parodic limits. The film follows the plight of Don Diego de Zama, a creole magistrate—a Spaniard born in the Americas and considered a second-class citizen—in the service of the Spanish crown. Resentful of his demotion to the provinces, he yearns for his transfer to the city of Lerma, where his wife and family live, and where he hopes to escape the deadening routine of his assignment. Fueled by boredom and desire, Zama woos a Spanish noblewoman neglected by her husband, but realizes too late that she is only toying with him. Unable to set any plot in motion other than that of his own destruction, Zama waits and waits…

Propelled by highly elliptic storytelling and featuring a striking color scheme as well as an extraordinary soundscape, Zama is a mixture of existential drama and Kafkaesque nightmare, constantly undercut by an ever-so-slight ironic tone. The film provides a startling portrayal of the conceits of empire and the paradoxes it breeds, carefully eschewing genre-driven formulas and relying on fantasy and imagination, sometimes to an outrageous degree, to re-envision the colonial past.