40 Acres

After a series of plagues and wars leave society in ruins, the Freemans are surviving — even thriving — on a farm in the middle of nowhere... so long as they repel the occasional raiding party. But what good is surviving the end of the world if it means snuffing out your own humanity?

Former soldier Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler) made that choice years ago, believing that isolation was the only way to protect her family. She and her partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes) fled the collapse along with their children, training them to fight (and, yes, kill). But now Hailey’s eldest Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor) is a young man, and when he meets a young woman (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) in the forest beyond the fence, his need for human contact could place the whole family in jeopardy.

Writer-director R.T. Thorne infuses the dystopian narrative with contemporary relevance and an inescapable historical metaphor, placing Black and Indigenous characters at the centre of a story about people defending their land from those who would kill them for it without a second thought.