A Co-presentation of AFI’s Latin American Film Festival and DCEFF

Nicaragua is one of the top five exporters of beef to the United States, whose profits in the industry have grown by over 400 percent in the last decade — but at great cost to the Rama Indigenous people and the Kriol Afro-descendent population, whose protected land in the rainforests is increasingly encroached upon and stolen by cattle ranchers seeking new land for their herds. An alliance between the two communities has led to the creation of Forest Ranger squads searching the area for signs of illegal encroachment. PATROL follows one of these squads as they patrol the region, aided by an American conservationist, encountering increasingly worrying levels of deforestation and signs that larger cattle-owning businesses are fast approaching.