| Director: | Petra Costa |
|---|---|
| Production: | Busca Vida Filmes (Petra Costa), Peri Productions (Alessandra Orofino) |
| Running Time: | 110’ |
| Language: | Portuguese |
| Country: | Brazil, USA, Denmark |
| Main Cast: | Silas Malafaia, Elizete Malafaia, Jair Bolsonaro, Luiz Inácio, Lula da Silva, Petra Costa - as themselves |
| Screenplay: | Petra Costa, Alessandra Orofino, Nels Bargenther, David Barker |
| Cinematographer: | João Atala, Pedro Urano, Murilo Salazar, Ricardo Stuckert |
| Editor: | Jordana Berg, Tina Baz, David Barker, Nels Bangerter, Victor Miaciro, Eduardo Gripa |
| Music: | Rodrigo Leão |
| Sound: | Olivier Goinard, Carlos E. Garcîa, Felipe Mussel |
Cinema
Apocalypse in the Tropics
Out of Competition
Synopsis
When does a democracy end, and a theocracy begins? In Apocalypse in the Tropics, Petra Costa investigates the increasingly powerful grip that faith leaders hold over politics in Brazil. She gains extraordinary access to the country’s top political leaders, including President Lula and former President Bolsonaro, as well as to Brazil’s most famous televangelist: a larger-than-life pastor who plays the puppet master to the far-right leader. The film chronicles the profound role the evangelical movement has played in Brazil’s recent political turmoil, and it also grapples with the apocalyptic theology that drives the movement’s chief protagonists. As in her Academy-Award nominated The Edge of Democracy, Costa documents a time of profound confusion and despair with lucidity and a poetic eye. Weaving together past and present, she immerses us in the contradictory realities of a young democracy that is hanging on by a thread, and, in so doing, holds up a mirror to the rest of the world.
Director's statement
A decade ago, I started an investigation whose outcome was unpredictable. I wanted to understand how democracies across the world had come to such a state of crisis. Brazil was a case in point. In 2016, a conservative Congress voted to impeach the country’s president for overtly political reasons, throwing our society into chaos. I traveled to the capitol, looking for proof that Brazilian democracy might still exist. Instead, I found a group of evangelical pastors and their followers walking through the Congress plenary and blessing the seats of lawmakers. They were determined to establish a government of "true believers" and to topple the “wall between church and state” once and for all. This group, I would later learn, was hardly fringe: they represented one of the strongest political forces in the country.
This encounter sent me on a journey through the symbols and mysteries of Christianity,— and, at the same time, it immersed me in the political turmoil wracking Brazil. I witnessed seas of people listening to Brazil’s most influential televangelist, Silas Malafaia. I stood before Renaissance paintings depicting the burning souls of the Apocalypse. I filmed Brazilian worshippers on their knees in the middle of streets interpreting the pandemic as a sign from God. Spiritual belief flows from a deep and inescapable human need. It should be compatible with the life and function of a democracy, but that is not always the case. When the forces of religious fervor clash with democratic ideals, the result may well throw us into tyranny.
Production/Distribution
PRODUCTION 1: Petra Costa - BUSCA VIDA FILMES
RUA DR ALBERTO SEABRA, 1175
05452-001, São Paulo, Brazil
Tel. 55 11 97381-7703
petra@buscavidafilmes.com
PRODUCTION 2: PERI PRODUCTIONS - Alessandra Orofino
PRAIA DE BOTAFOGO, 228 - SALA 1402d
22250-906 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Brazil
Tel. 55-21 99884-1400
alessandra@periprod.com
PRESS OFFICE: Layla Hancock-Piper
Cinetic Marketing & PR
layla@cineticmedia.com
Tel. 917.963.2448
INTERNATIONAL PRESS OFFICE: Claudia Tomassini + Associates
press@claudiatomassini.com
