When does a democracy end, and a theocracy begin? Have India, Hungary and Israel already slipped into the latter category? Is it possible that Brazil and the United States will also cross the line?
We never thought we would ask ourselves these questions, but they have not left our minds for the last decade – until we were able to address them more directly in the form of a film, Apocalypse in the Tropics, which looks specifically into the relationship of the far right and Christian fundamentalism in Brazil.
We are two Brazilian women, one an activist and community organizer turned producer – Alessandra Orofino – the other an anthropologist turned film-maker – Petra Costa. And we began the journey that would lead us into this film from different places: one of us spent years embedded into the highest circles of institutional democracy, filming presidents, ministers and judges up close through a period of tremendous turmoil.
The other was trying to organize people from the ground up – developing social justice campaigns that would get millions involved in decision-making, or give tens of thousands access to solidarity networks on the ground. Both of us witnessed scenes that would foreshadow the tremendous impact that religious fundamentalism would have on our country’s politics.
In 2016, Costa was filming The Edge of Democracy, trying to understand how democracies across the world wound up in such a state of crisis and whether they could survive it. We were in the midst of an economic crisis and a controversial impeachment process. And so Costa went with a film team to the capital, to try to understand what was happening to our democracy. And instead of finding........