Apocalypse in the Tropics

Evangelical fundamentalism is rapidly on the rise in Brazil, with popular TV evangelists calling on their supporters to back ultraconservative presidential candidates whose campaign promises are focused on banning abortion rights and gender neutral toilets.

This religious influence dragged the country to its lowest point during the pandemic, when, rather than importing vaccines and oxygen, the Bolsonaro government called on the population to pray harder. The result was a record 700,000 Covid-related deaths.

Filmmaker Petra Costa previously made the Oscar-nominated documentary The Edge of Democracy (2019), about the global growth of polarization and extreme political violence. In this film she looks at whether Brazil is headed toward becoming a theocracy.

She speaks, for example, with the country’s current president Lula, and with TV evangelist Silas Malafaia, who helped Bolsonaro to victory in 2018. His apocalyptic theology provides an alarming backdrop to news footage of mass political and religious gatherings, in an urgent and exemplary portrait of a young democracy that’s hanging on by a thread.