This chilling documentary from filmmaker Petra Costa "tells a grim story about modern Brazil", said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. It explains how right-wing evangelical Christianity has seduced many of the country's political leaders and millions of its people: in the past 30 years, Costa tells us, the evangelical share of the population has risen from 5% to 30%.
And through its substantial voting bloc in the national congress, the religious Right has effectively created "a minority-rule theocracy". American televangelists such as Billy Graham made inroads into the majority Catholic nation after the Second World War; and how today, figures such as Pastor Silas Malafaia, a celebrity evangelist who became a major influence on the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, are wildly popular.
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Archive footage of Brasília, showing how the newly built capital's architecture manifested the separation of Church and state, is contrasted with the horrifying Maga-inspired mob assault on the city in 2023. Costa ends on a relatively hopeful note, but cautions that even with Bolsonaro gone, "religious fanaticism" remains as influential as ever. It all points to a "troubling and uncertain future".
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