Director Carlos Conceição’s English-language debut, Bodyhackers, premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as a body-horror noir about paranoia, beauty and self-transformation. It follows Renee, played by Joana Ribeiro, as she enters a secretive cosmetic-surgery clinic and becomes absorbed by the healing process, while Denver investigates suspected wrongdoing at the company; the filmmakers say it avoids a simple anti-surgery message.

Conceição wrote the film during the pandemic, drawing on the wider atmosphere of global suspicion rather than plastic surgery alone. Ribeiro described Renee as driven by an internal desire to match her perceived identity, while Conceição said the film examines how anything—including medical jargon and bodily wounds—can become fetishised; producer Fred Mesquita credited the director’s inventive use of ordinary, low-cost locations for its striking visual style.