The last documentary of the director nominated for the Oscar Petra Costa arrives on Netflix “Apocalypse in the Tropics”. After the success of “Edge of Democracy – Democracy at the limit”, the author returns to investigate the fracture between institutions and ideals, this time with a deepening aimed at a Brazil in the balance between politics and prophecy. The film, already previewed at the Venice Film Festival 2024, sinks in the increasingly disturbing relationship between religious power and political power, showing how faith – instead of a private and spiritual element – can turn into leverages, a propaganda tool, and even a prelude to authoritarianism. We see on stage, among others, the current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president Jair Bolsonaro and the controversial evangelical shepherd Silas Malafaia.
Apocalypse in the tropics: the (true) history at the center of the docufilm
The story that Petra Costa tells is not linear or comforting: it is the story of a young country, built on tensions never resolved, in which the very idea of separation between the state and the Church is questioned. The documentary opens in a crucial moment: the 2016 impeachment against President Dilma Rousseff: an act that, although disguised as an institutional gesture, brings with it a strong ideological and religious load. From that moment the director begins to follow the signs of an increasingly evident infiltration of the spiritual power in the rooms of civil power. The director films the evangelical shepherds who bless the Banks of the congress, the crowds in prayer who interpret the pandemic as a divine punishment, the sermons in which apocalypse and salvation bind with political messages. The message that spreads between the masses is clear: God has a plan for the country, and those who do not follow him is an enemy.
At the center of this narrative stands out the charismatic and disturbing figure of Silas Malafaia, television shepherd and strategist of the Christian right. His relationship with Bolsonaro shows how much the theology of the apocalypse can become a key to justify authoritarian drifts. The film does not just denounce, but tries to understand where this need to believe is born and how the faith can turn into a weapon. Investigates religious symbols as if they were clues in a collective process of radicalization: visions of hell, baptisms of mass, the aesthetic of salvation and condemnation.
Although rooted in the reality of Brazil, “Apocalypse in the tropics” speaks to a global audience and shows how the crisis of democracy is often accompanied by a saving, mystical, sometimes messianic rhetoric. The power of the documentary therefore lies in its ability to combine political analysis with the symbolic dimension. Faith is not ridiculed or demonized, but observed in its double potential: force that unites, but also that separates; engine of hope, but also of fanaticism. Petra Costa guides us through this labyrinth of contradictions, looking for in its own experience – as a witness and town – a key to understand.
Apocalypse in the tropics: when it comes out on Netflix
The “apocalypse in the tropics” docufilm arrives globally on Netflix on Monday 14 July 2025.
Apocalypse in the tropics: the original trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii29gvno1mo
