Apocalypse in the Tropics

In Brazil, evangelical fundamentalism is on the rise. Popular TV evangelists are calling on their followers to side with ultraconservative presidential candidates; abortion rights and gender-neutral toilets are particularly under attack.

During the coronavirus pandemic, religious influence takes the country to a low point, when Bolsonaro’s government does not buy vaccines or oxygen tanks, but calls on the population to pray harder. It results in a record 700,000 deaths.

Filmmaker Petra Costa previously made the Oscar-nominated documentary The Edge of Democracy (2019) about the global rise in polarization and extreme political violence. In Brazil, she investigates whether the country is moving towards a theocracy. For example, she speaks with current president Lula, but also with TV evangelist Silas Malafaia, who helped Bolsonaro to his victory in 2018. The apocalyptic theology he propagates forms the disturbing background to news footage of massively attended political and religious gatherings in this urgent and exemplary sketch of a young democracy hanging by a thread.