Oscar-Nominated Petra Costa, Director of Venice’s ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics,’ on How Brazil Serves as a ‘Parable’ for the U.S.
variety.comRafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Four years after being Oscar-nominated for “The Edge of Democracy,” director Petra Costa is back prodding at the current state of Brazilian politics with the documentary “Apocalypse in the Tropics,” which world premieres in the Out of Competition section at the Venice Film Festival.
The film, originally teased as a snapshot of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s infamously poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, morphed into a questioning of how democracies blur into theocracies and the role of the country’s growing evangelical movement in Brazil’s recent political turmoil.
For perspective, in Brazil, the evangelical population was 5% in the 1980s. Now, it makes up for more than 30%. “The film is a continuation of an investigation I began with ‘The Edge of Democracy,’” Costa tells Variety.
Two of the film’s seminal scenes were captured during the shooting of her previous doc, including the opening scene showcasing a group of evangelists blessing the Congress and speaking in tongues ahead of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment vote in 2016. “A few days later I stumbled upon a mass gathering called the Prophetic Act, which gathered the most important pastors of Brazil.
Read more on variety.com