Bolsonaro Arrest Draws Comment From ‘Apocalypse’ Director Petra Costa

Arrest of the former president Jair Bolsonaro in the capital of Brazil makes headlines around the world and puts the film in the running for an Oscar.

Federal police took Bolsonaro into custody on Saturday after Brazil's Supreme Court found there was evidence he was planning to escape house arrest and possibly flee to a foreign embassy days before he was handed a 27-year prison sentence. He was found guilty in September of attempting to stage a military coup to retain power after he lost re-election in 2022.

Apocalypse in the tropicsdirector Petra Costashows how the rise of Christian nationalism in Brazil helped propel Bolsonaro, a far-right populist, to the presidency in 2019 after evangelicals leading the movement chose him as their preferred candidate.

Reacting to news of Bolsonaro's arrest, Costa wrote on social media: “Brazil has just succeeded where America failed. Bringing to justice a former president who attacked democracy.”

On Tuesday, Apocalypse in the tropics received four nominations at the 41st IDA Documentary Awards, including Best Documentary Feature and Best Director for Costa. For her film, Costa interviewed the man who defeated Bolsonaro in 2022, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. She also spoke with Bolsonaro himself, as well as a Christian nationalist pastor. Silas Malafaiawho supported Bolsonaro's candidacy and, as some would say, pulled the puppet strings while the president was in power.

Costa says Malafaya behaved “like a Rasputin figure in relation to Bolsonaro. He helped elect Bolsonaro… He [gathered] Evangelical votes for Bolsonaro, who in Brazil accounted for 27 percent of the population. And the vast majority of them voted for Bolsonaro, giving him working-class public support that he didn’t have before.”

Apocalypse in the tropics was released worldwide on Netflix on July 14, and had an immediate effect in Brazil that Pastor Malafaia did not foresee when he spoke openly with the director about his contempt of the Brazilian Supreme Court and his insistence that Bolsonaro remain in office despite the defeat. As a result of the documentary, Costa tells Deadline, Malafaia now finds himself embroiled in the very investigation that led to Bolsonaro being sentenced to 27 years in prison.

“It is important to note that the federal police or the Supreme Court did not investigate him or mention him at all,” Costa said. “I think that really happened in large part because of the movie and the way the movie brought attention to his role.”

The evidence against Malafaia comes from a specific scene in the documentary – a moment at a rally Bolsonaro attended as he tried to cling to power. A few feet away from Bolsonaro stood Malafaia, who appeared to be saying words that simultaneously came out of Bolsonaro's mouth—suggesting at least that they had coordinated their remarks in advance or that the president was Malafaia's ventriloquist dummy.

Malafaia “essentially imitated Bolsonaro, but also directly confronted the Supreme Court. So this was the most passionate speech of both of them, in which they both confront the Supreme Court and disrespect it, and also declare that they will no longer obey the orders of the court.”

Bolsonaro's trial revealed disturbing details of his alleged plot to maintain power.

“This coup had a plan – and this plan was written and printed in [Bolsonaro’s] presidential palace to assassinate Lula, Lula's vice-president and Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes. And that was just No this plan was carried out because one high-ranking general did not agree with it. And the reason was that there was no support from the United States. The Biden administration has said it will not support the coup, otherwise it would have happened. So if Trump were president, for example, this coup could happen and be successful, which is very scary.”

President Trump has expressed consistent support for Bolsonaro since Trump's first term in office. Earlier this year, the US president imposed heavy tariffs on Brazil as punishment for the prosecution of Bolsonaro.

“He tried to force Brazil to stop the trial of Bolsonaro, calling it a witch hunt,” Costa noted, “claiming that Bolsonaro had done nothing different than what he had done himself… He also sanctioned [Brazilian] Supreme Court judges and ceased their activities [U.S.] visas.”

What Bolsonaro and Trump have in common is that Christian nationalist ideology has become an integral part of their rule. Bolsonaro appears to have received his marching orders from Malafaya; As for Trump, he brought Pete Hegseth, a prominent Christian nationalist, into his cabinet in the vital role of secretary of defense.

As Costa shows in his film, Christian nationalists are motivated by an interpretation of the New Testament that downplays the teachings of the Gospel and instead focuses on Revelations, a controversial book of the Bible that predicts a final battle between good and evil in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ.

Costa noted the influence of “Revelations” on Trump's comments at the memorial service for slain right-wing political organizer Charlie Kirk, a Christian nationalist. After Kirk's widow told those in attendance that she had forgiven her husband's killer, Trump disagreed, saying he hated his opponents.

“[Trump] calls on this apocalyptic speech, this Christian vision of a Christ who is not the Redeemer, not to preach love and forgiveness, but to preach war and the destruction of your enemies,” Costa noted.

In Bolsonaro's case, Malafaia whispered in his ear. The Brazilian pastor, in turn, was influenced by American theologian Peter Wagner, who argued that the Christian church must engage in spiritual warfare to gain “dominance” over all areas of culture. “[Wagner] calls the left “Satan on Earth” and a Satan that must be extinguished and destroyed, which is directly opposed to the principle of democratic thought, as well as the Christian thought of loving one's neighbor.”

The Brazilian Constitution, based on the US Constitution, enshrines the separation of church and state. But in both countries the Christian nationalist movement is trying to put an end to this.

“What I was interested in understanding in this film,” Costa told Deadline, “was what this marriage between religious fundamentalism and politics is doing to our democracy and how it threatens it.”