The Magistrate, administrator of an isolated frontier settlement on the border of an unnamed empire, looks forward to an easy retirement until the arrival of Colonel Joll, whose task it is to report on the activities of the 'barbarians' and on the security situation on the border. Joll conducts a series of ruthless interrogations. The treatment of the 'barbarians' at the hands of the Colonel and the torture of a young 'barbarian' woman combine to lead the Magistrate to a crisis of conscience and a quixotic act of rebellion.
Ciro Guerra (Río de Oro, Colombia. 1981) won the Films in Progress Award in 2013 for his first film, La sombra del caminante (The Wandering Shadow), which competed in New Directors at San Sebastian in 2004. This was followed by Los viajes del viento (The Wind Journeys, 2009) and El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), premiered, respectively, in Un Certain Regard and the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the Cannes Festival. Both competed in Horizontes Latinos at San Sebastian and El abrazo de la serpiente became the first Colombian film to be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. With Pájaros de verano (Birds of Passage, 2018), he opened the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Cannes and harvested more than 30 awards worldwide. Waiting for the Barbarians, his first film in English, competed at the last Venice Festival.