Brazil has become a cautionary tale for the world’s democracies
You won’t find tanks on the streets in Rio. But don’t be fooled. The far right is becoming more and more powerful
I was a child when I saw Terry Gilliam’s Brazil for the first time. I expected a film about the stereotypes of my country – carnival, samba and football – but found something else. In Gilliam’s surrealist story, the state imprisons, tortures and kills anyone it sees fit. Human rights disappear in a Kafkaesque maze.
I met Gilliam 20 years later. He came to a screening in London of my film The Edge of Democracy, which chronicles Brazil’s recent political crisis. He told me he was inspired to name his film Brazil not only by the famous song but also by the Latin American dictatorships of the 1970s. As I made my film, the dystopian future once imagined by Gilliam was now a reality captured by our cameras.