Fresh off the announcement that the film will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Lionsgate has unveiled the first Sicario image from Prisoners and Enemy director Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming dramatic actioner. Penned by Taylor Sheridan, the story takes place near the U.S.-Mexico border and stars Emily Blunt as an idealistic FBI agent who is enlisted by members of a government task force (Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro) to take out a Mexican cartel boss.

This is one of my most anticipated films of the year for a number of reasons. First off, female-led action films are rare, and Emily Blunt is incredible. Secondly, while I wasn’t blown away by Prisoners, I thought Villeneuve’s Enemy was superb. And thirdly, freaking Roger Deakins is the cinematographer, reuniting with Villeneuve after Prisoners. He’s simply the most masterful director of photography working today, and I’ll jump at any chance to see new work of his.

Villeneuve has quickly assembled an incredibly promising slate, as he’s next set to helm the sci-fi drama Story of Your Life with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, after which he will direct the Blade Runner sequel with Harrison Ford and possibly Ryan Gosling. We can only hope that his Deakins collaboration continues through to Blade Runner 2, as the prospect of seeing Deakins work within that world is glee-inducing.

But first we’ve got Sicario to look forward to, and I can’t wait to see what Villeneuve has put together. Check out the first image from the film below, via Lionsgate. The film also stars Jon Bernthal and Victor Garber and opens in limited release on September 18th, followed by a wide release on September 25th.

Here’s the official synopsis for Sicario: