Ethan Hawke and Orlando Bloom Join Forces With Zaya Guarani for Jungle Thriller The Last of the Tribe

This one started as journalism and is now aiming to be a sweaty, nerve-jangling thriller. Monte Reel’s non-fiction book about a real-life solitary Indigenous survivor in the Amazon is becoming a feature called The Last of the Tribe, and the package is surprisingly stacked.

What the movie is

Variety says Ethan Hawke (The Weight) and Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings) are set to star, alongside model and environmental activist Zaya Guarani, who will be making her screen acting debut. Claudio Borrelli (Vultures) is directing from a script by Mark Bailey (Downfall; The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari). The producers are positioning it as a jungle thriller with something on its mind.

"In this story, the rainforest is both the villain and the savior."

That’s Borrelli’s own line about the tone he’s chasing. You get the idea: brutal and beautiful, often at the same time.

The real story behind it

Reel’s book tracks a wild chapter of recent history: in 1996, officials in southwestern Brazil confirmed sightings of a lone Indigenous man living in deep forest. Uncontacted tribes are rare; a tribe of one was unheard of. His presence blocked ranchers from claiming the land, which led a small, seasoned team from the government’s Indigenous affairs office to protect him. These were people who knew the jungle better than most: a rebel who spent years living with a tribe, a kid who left home at 14 to work the forest, and an old-school sertanista with five decades of stories. The stakes were obvious and deadly; resentment from nearby settlers could turn violent fast.

How the film is shaping up

The movie isn’t a straight docudrama. Hawke plays William Phelan, a burned-out Chicago cop who has slid into corporate muscle work. He’s sent to look into a suspicious death, and in the process stumbles into the orbit of the last living member of an Indigenous tribe. So yes, thriller mechanics, but rooted in the same fragile territory the book explored.

• Cast: Ethan Hawke; Orlando Bloom; Zaya Guarani (making her screen debut)
• Director: Claudio Borrelli (Vultures)
• Writer: Mark Bailey (Downfall; The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari)
• Producers: Edward Saxon; Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz for Chockstone Pictures; Mark Bailey; Ethan Hawke and Ryan Hawke
• Executive producer: Fernando Meirelles (City of God); his company O2 Filmes is producing in Brazil
• Sales: Protagonist Pictures is taking it to the European Film Market

The behind-the-scenes shuffle

If you’ve been following this one, there’s been a change at the top. Some outlets had Hawke and Guarani attached back in 2024, when Fernando Meirelles was still going to direct. He’s now an executive producer, with Borrelli directing. Same core idea, different steering wheel.

What the team is saying

The producers are pitching it as an old-school, edge-of-your-seat ride that also stares down the ongoing destruction of the rainforest and the communities who live there. Protagonist’s CEO Dave Bishop is using words like intense and propulsive, with a moral center, and says the Hawke/Bloom/Guarani trio gives them a strong hook as they shop it at EFM.

And a note that actually matters here: Zaya Guarani was born and raised in the Amazon, and she told Vogue Brazil the script felt close to home because she grew up watching the land around her get threatened over and over. For a movie about who gets to survive in the forest, that perspective is not just nice to have.

Bottom line

Big-star survival thriller meets very real stakes. If Borrelli sticks the landing between pulpy tension and the on-the-ground truth Monte Reel wrote about, this could hit hard. I’m in.