“Our democracy was founded on forgetting,” states filmmaker Petra Costa, an ever-present narrator guiding us through Brazil’s political history, one that has been rife with an incredible amount of controversy. Examining her native country’s democracy from when it began in 1985, focusing on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff’s careers, Costa interweaves the personal and political to show just how fragile a people’s government can be when information is kept from the public and those in power refuse to operate in the best interests of the masses.

“A mournful but clear-eyed look at one of the many governments on the planet currently either going to or simmering in hell, Petra Costa’s The Edge of Democracy is as much essay film as a primer on Brazil’s recent history. Viewing the rise and fall of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party through the lens of her own family’s complicated political life, Costa mixes journalism and memoir in ways one might expect after her dreamy 2012 film Elena.”—John DeFore, Variety