EXCLUSIVE: When does a democracy end, and a theocracy begin? That’s the key question in Oscar-nominated filmmaker Petra Costa’s urgent new documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics, set to open in select theaters in the U.S. and UK on July 11, and in Brazil this Thursday, and premiering worldwide on Netflix on July 14.
Costa’s film doesn’t focus on, say, Iran or Afghanistan – where theocratic control of government has become a norm — but in a place where separation of church and state is enshrined in the constitution: her native Brazil. That idea, central to Brazilian democracy and American tradition as well, is coming under increasing threat from the rise of Christian nationalism. In Christian nationalist thinking – surging in Brazil and the U.S. – an avenging Jesus from out of the Book of Revelations suits up for battle with his opponents, eager to spill blood to achieve God’s will. Secular government be damned.
We have your first look at the Oscar-contending film in the trailer above.
“In Apocalypse in the Tropics, director Petra Costa takes us on a decade-long journey through the spiritual and political upheaval of Brazil,” explains a synopsis. “What begins as a search for signs of life in a fragile democracy transforms into a deeper inquiry into the seductions of power, prophecy and belief. Costa gains extraordinary access to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former President Jair Bolsonaro and the nation’s magnetic televangelist Silas Malafaia. More than a chronicle of political change, Apocalypse in the Tropics is a cinematic investigation of the fault lines that emerge when religion fuels political ambition.”
Netflix
The synopsis continues, “With the savage clarity that defined her Academy Award–nominated The Edge of Democracy, Costa documents a time of kaleidoscopic confusion and fear with intimate observational filmmaking that braids together the personal, the historic and the mythic. As faith shifts from private refuge to public battleground, Brazil holds a mirror to a world where democracies are being tested by the power of prophecy.”
For anyone who might feel the film pertains just to Brazil, consider that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, is associated with Christian nationalism. So is influential Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth bears tattoos connected with the religious movement. The Supreme Court, with a Christian conversative supermajority, has proven increasingly amenable to inserting religion – particularly Christianity – into the public sphere. (In a 6-3 ruling last week, the court allowed parents to shield their children from lessons in public schools that they object to on religious grounds).
Filmmaker Petra Costa
Matthew Carey
In a recent interview with Deadline, Costa commented on the Christian nationalist preoccupation with a violent Jesus who preaches “that you should kill your enemies and destroy your enemies, annihilate your enemies. The marriage between this Christian fundamentalism and the far right is incompatible with democracy because the main principle of democracy is that you have to coexist with your enemy.”
Costa noted, “Even though the United States is the first nation to have to declare the separation of church and state, it’s also the first to create such a deliberate movement to infuse politics with Christianity and mobilize its followers into these culture wars that are now having their apex… When I look at the history of American politics through the lens of what I’ve discovered in making this film, it’s as if the foundation of MAGA and what you’re seeing of Trump’s government now is the moral majority.”
An image from ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics’ with an illustration from the Book of Revelations
Netflix
Apocalypse in the Tropics premiered last September at the Venice Film Festival and made its North American premiere at Telluride. It has screened at other prestigious festivals around the world, including San Sebastián, Hot Springs in Arkansas, Camden in Maine, Zurich, IDFA in the Netherlands, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland, Palm Springs, DC/DOX and many others.
The documentary is written and directed by Petra Costa and produced by Alessandra Orofino and Costa. Watch the trailer for Apocalypse in the Tropics above.
