The Edge of Democracy

Dir. Petra Costa. 2019, 113 mins. In English and Portuguese with English subtitles. A cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis, The Edge of Democracy nimbly fuses the personal and political to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history. Combining unprecedented access to leaders past and present—including Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva, as well as their emergent rival Jair Bolsonaro—with accounts of her own family’s complex political and industrial past, filmmaker Petra Costa (Elena) witnesses their rise and fall and the tragically polarized nation that remains.

“Searing and enlightening. A thriller and epic, a tale of conspiratorial, self-interested scheming that is at the same time a saga of large historical forces and epochal shifts in power and ideology. It’s a chronicle of civic betrayal and the abuse of power, and also of heartbreak.”—A.O. Scott, The New York Times, Critic’s Pick

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