Director Cazals utilises a striking drama-documentary style to tell the tale (based on real events from 1968) of a group of young people on a hiking trip who find themselves stranded in a remote village, San Miguel Canoa. There the locals mis-recognise them as a group of student communist activists and, driven on by the local priest, subject them to a night of violence. Canoa won the Silver Bear at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival.