Petra Costa is a Brazilian filmmaker whose work encompasses both fiction and nonfiction. Her first film, “Elena,” premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Her second film, “Olmo and the Seagull,” premiered at Locarno.

“The Edge of Democracy” premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 24.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words. 

PC: “The Edge of Democracy” is a personal journey into politics as I watched my country, Brazil, fall into disarray, much like so many other democracies around the world.

The story came to me in an almost operatic way. I witnessed firsthand the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president; the rise of her conservative vice-president Michel Temer; the imprisonment of Lula, one of the most popular leaders of Latin America; and the dramatic events of the country’s most recent election.

This spectacularly rapid fall from grace came just as Brazil had finally affirmed itself as a democratic power on the world stage. My parents fought against the dictatorship and dedicated much of their lives to the establishment of Brazilian democracy; having grown up with their model, I thought I was lucky to finally be reaping the fruits of their struggle. But suddenly it all began to collapse.

Class tensions that had been building for years exploded, including in my very own family. In fact, while making the film I realized how my family was more deeply intertwined with the country’s political crisis than I had ever imagined.

The film is a look into power, the desire to make change, and the disillusionment of seeing political structures moving to make sure that everything will stay the same.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

PC: There is something I say in the film about being the same age as Brazilian democracy and how I thought that in our 30s we would both be standing on solid ground. Around 2013, I started to realize that that ground was not as solid as I imagined. But it only became truly clear to me in early 2016, when I witnessed a massive protest asking for Dilma’s impeachment.

What I saw there was so intense that I decided to film and, since then, I have entered into a rabbit hole that has lasted 1,001 nights. This film is born from a scare, a deep sensation of vertigo, and a desire to understand what makes a country turn inside out. I tried to bring that to the screen as cinematically as possible, and mimic the political thriller that unfolded in front of me.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater? 

PC: What I really hope is that audiences leave this film able to make up their own mind about what is happening in Brazil. I have my own point of view but even that has changed and developed a lot in the making of the film. I hope it can help people understand some of the extreme complexity and confusion around this story.

For me, “The Edge of Democracy” touches a taboo: speaking truth to power. Coming of age in Brazil, you could talk politics, but only if it stayed on the surface. There was a sense of “Do not criticize the country’s elite, especially if you are a part of it,” and “Do not criticize the country’s left; if you denounce it, you will give strength to the other side.”

Now that everything has cracked open, and all that was rotten has come to the surface, the imposition of silence and forgetfulness has been suspended. We may finally take a good look in the mirror and see what is at stake. I believe it is our duty to stop the destruction of our democratic institutions before it is too late.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film? 

PC: This film brings me to a new place, both artistically and in terms of subject matter. My previous films have been intimate portraits of individuals and “The Edge of Democracy” is still that, but with individuals at the heart of a major unfolding global and political news story. It’s been fascinating but challenging at every step. Definitely the hardest challenge I ever faced.

To try to distill the information, I had to try to understand each layer of the story — and each layer was extremely complex — from the Car Wash investigation, to the political landscape of the Congress and the Senate, the economy, the history, the politics. It was an endless rabbit hole.

The hardest part was dealing with the personal level of pain that this story brought to me and to all my close ones.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made. 

PC: We knew that keeping this documentary fiercely independent was crucial so we began fundraising outside of Brazil. We’ve been very lucky to be supported by Tribeca, Sundance, and Bertha Doc Society among others, and then began working with the Netflix Originals team, which we believe is the ideal distributor for this film on a global platform.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

PC: I had a hard time choosing a career as I was compelled strongly into different areas. I loved theater, later fell in love with anthropology, which gave me the tools to understand a lot about my country, and I was always intrigued by psychology. I think that I could only settle for cinema because it was an area where all my interests could converge.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

PC: The best advice was a quotation I read from Nicolas Cage, where he said, “There’s no recipe for success, but there is a recipe for failure — trying to please others.”

The worst advice I heard was from a male theater director. I was telling him that I was having difficulty playing my character, a suicidal teenager, because my sister had taken her own life. He said, “You should see a psychologist, as that is not a matter for theater.” I disagree. I think that is the most important matter when you are dealing with people’s lives in an artistic way — you should have empathy about how it reverberates in the most intimate ways in their lives.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

PC: Be stubborn. Or as Che Guevara says, “Be strong without ever losing tenderness.”

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

PC: I have to say two: “Beau Travail” by Claire Denis, and “The Beaches of Agnès” by Agnès Varda.

“Beau Travail” was the first film I saw that looked at men’s bodies the way a woman looks at men’s bodies. And it also looked at women’s bodies the way a woman looks at a woman’s body — and it does so in a very complex way. The film deals with conflicts of race and power, but at the same time it is sensitive and poetic.

“The Beaches of Agnès” taught me the freedom of filmmaking. Varda recounts her life through her own films and in doing so gives herself the freedom to do everything — including putting herself inside the stomach of a whale.

W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

PC: I had long been waiting for all this to happen. One of the reasons that I have been working on directing rather than acting was the level of oppression I felt as a female actress. And I know very intimately the pains of being a victim of abuse. My sister was a victim of abuse when she was 14 years old at the hands of her theater director and that definitely influenced her suicide.

I think it is fundamental for women to keep voicing the oppression they face — which of course is much harder for women who do not have power. I think Brazil is still lagging way behind in this movement and I hope it will arrive more strongly here soon.