HOW A BRAZILIAN FILMMAKER MADE ALL THE WAY TO THE OSCARS
- Thais Xabu
- Mar 23, 2020
- 6 min read
the Edge of Democracy is a movie warning in times of a democratic crisis. It serves as a portrait of one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history. The director Petra Costa uses firsthand reports of her family and historical imagery to analyze the rise and fall of Brazilian politicians in the wake of a polarized nation. Given that the film faced a far-right government that is not supportive of film production or the arts and withstood heavy criticism in the Brazilian media, the film was an incredible success: Opening at Sundance last year, being the second most-watched documentary in 2019 on Netflix, and nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar in 2020.
I wrote this article for one of my UCLA classes and I decided to share it here because Petra has a strong voice and vision, as a female, from South America, is a minority in the Oscars, and by directing a movie about politics in an artistic way at a time where freedoms, democratic values, and artistic expression are under assault.
Petra Costa is a 36 years old Brazilian filmmaker, daughter of leftist militants in 1970 ( who went to jail for a few weeks for questioning the dictatorship at that time ), studied anthropology in New York, and did a Social Psychology Master in London. Since returning to Brazil at the age of 24, she has dedicated her life to making movies, and most of her movies are in the borderlines of fiction and nonfiction. After so many facts that happened in the last 30 years in Brazil, from living in a dictatorship with a torture regime military to a democratic government, many corruption scandals, and Illegitimate Impeachment, murdered activists, and other issues. Petra felt that the new government and media were not representing her sentiments and neither other Brazilians, and then she decided to do The Edge of Democracy. In an interview with CNN, Petra Costa says: "It talks about the global phenomenon of how democracy dies today. Not with tanks, not with the military taking over, but with the erosion of institutions, the spread of fake news, huge social media campaigns perpetrated and may be paid for by corporations interested in the demise of democracy."
Here is the trailer:
Petra was doing another movie when the crises in Brazil exploded, and then she felt an urge to make the Edge of Democracy. However, she started without having a plan and not having any support in the government. Petra knew that it was crucial to keep this documentary fiercely independent, so she had to finance in the beginning using her own production company "Busca Vida Filmes". After having some footage material ready, she started to apply for a few international investments. She got support from Tribeca, Sundance, and Bertha Doc Society, among others. Later on, Petra started sending her movie to possible buyers and distributors. Suddenly, Netflix got interested and helped to finance it, which she believes was the ideal distributor for this film on a global platform. Another successful choice factor was having Joanna Natasegara as a producer. She is an experienced director and producer of documentaries and has gotten her third nomination for The Edge of Democracy after winning for White Helmets in 2016.
The film had the world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2019. Netflix released worldwide in the same year in June, along with a theatrical run in NYC and Los Angeles. The film also screened at a few festivals like CPH: DOX, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fes, the Montclair Film Festival, and the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. In January 2020, it got announced as one of the nominees for the Best Feature Documentary at the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony. It was an incredible surprise because usually, the committee leaves aside documentaries with political content.
Petra filmed this documentary for over three years. It was 5,000 hours of footage, in addition to a massive collection of archival footage from the last 30 years of history of Brazil. She took a long time to gain extraordinary access to both Dilma (the ex-president that had illegal impeachment) and Lula ( the ex Brazilian president that was governing for 12 years). She says that Bolsonaro, who had just declared his intention to run for President at that time, granted her an interview immediately: "They call me rude, homophobic, fascist. I'm a hero. I get stronger every day in the public opinion," it is his talk in the movie.
Netflix announced that it was the second most-watched documentary on its platform in 2019. Since it had a negative impact in Brazil, several twitter users wanted to boycott the platform, but Netflix did not care, and they have experienced this type of problem with other movies in the past. Netflix was also more focused on the "American Factory" campaign, which was another documentary film competing for the Oscars and which had all the support of the Obama family.
Most governments celebrate when their citizens are nominated for Academy Awards – but not Jair Bolsonaro or "Trump of the Tropics" how a media named him, because of his similarities with the US president. Bolsonaro is a far-right, former-army that for many years was infamous for his defense of the country's military dictatorship and his attacks on women, gays, and minorities. Brazil's new rightwing regime wants to censor textbooks, spy on teacher and movie content, and restrict access to university research grants and made it clear that it will not tolerate any deviation from its ultra-conservative policy. Since taking office, Bolsonaro administration has systematically undermined cultural, scientific, and educational institutions in the country.
In the interview, Bolsonaro said he had not seen the movie - but was sure it was "garbage administrative agency responsible for elevating Brazil's international profile did attack Petra Costa as well, branding her "an anti-patriot activist" who had "tarnished the country's image abroad." And also that this movie should be included in the fiction category instead of a documentary.
In sum, Petra is fearless for confronting all this situation. In an interview with The Washington, Post Petra said that she was frightened by the government's reaction. She called it an attempt to silence her: "When they call me 'an anti-Brazil militant,' as they do to many who do not agree with them, they are trying to censor criticism and divergent thinking, which is guaranteed by our fundamental right to freedom of expression. For instance, she gave many interviews and wrote an article in the New York Times titled "Bolsonaro Wars on Truth." In this article, she discloses the President's attacks on her movie and also recalls scandalous video with Nazi quotes from the Brazilian Culture Minister.
The filmmaker believes all people around the world had connected with her documentary because they see their democracies under a similar danger. "The film criticizes leaders who attempt to silence divergent thinking. Maybe this is the reason some authoritarian far-right politicians, in Brazil and abroad, want to brand journalistic efforts to unveil the truth as fiction and fake news." She concludes the article with the saying: "There is no visible light at the end of the tunnel in this culture war that seeks to censor liberal and progressive values and the destruction of the truth to impose tropical fascism. As I point out in "The Edge of Democracy," the elite got tired of playing democracy. As the history of Nazism reminds us, the elites who were silent in the face of the advance of authoritarianism ultimately ended up swallowed by it."
In conclusion, besides all this government criticism, Petra can consider herself victorious in this war and must be respected for the demonstration of resilience and sincerity when making the film, in addition to having obtained worldwide distribution through Netflix and being nominated to compete for the Academy Award. It is not easy to make a political documentary a piece of art.
If you have not watched it yet, go check it out on Netflix!
References:
Shasta Darlington, "This Oscar-nominated Brazil documentary is a warning for democracies around the world," CNN,03 Feb 2020 <https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/03/americas/brazil-the-edge-of-democracy-documentary-intl/index.html>
." Laura Berger, "Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Petra Costa – "The Edge of Democracy," Woman and Hollywood, 30 Jan 2019 <https://womenandhollywood.com/sundance-2019-women-directors-meet-petra-costa-the-edge-of-democracy/>
—Petra Costa"The Edge of Democracy," Netflix,2019.
Adam Benzine, "The Edge of Democracy' Acts as Warning Shot for America, Says Director," Hollywood Reporter, 24 Jan 2020
." Terrance McCoy, "A Brazilian documentary is nominated for an Oscar. President Bolsonaro hates it”, Washington Post, 4 Feb 2020, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-brazilian-documentary-is-nominated-for-an-oscar-president-bolsonaro-hates-it/2020/02/04/e37c1b1a-46ba-11ea-91ab-ce439aa5c7c1_story.html>
Shasta Darlington, "This Oscar-nominated Brazil documentary is a warning for democracies around the world," CNN,03 Feb 2020 <https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/03/americas/brazil-the-edge-of-democracy-documentary-intl/index.ht
Petra Costa, " Bolsanaro's War Truth," New York Times, 24 Jan 2020, < https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/brazil-bolsonaro-edge-of-democracy.html>
"Democracy and freedom of expression are under threat in Brazil," The Guardian, 07 Feb 2020
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