ABOUT

My production company created this film at the invitation of Marina Silva, then a presidential candidate and now Brazil’s Minister of the Environment. She gave us complete creative freedom at a time when democracy in Brazil was under threat and the secular state increasingly endangered by religious interference.

My idea was to stage a familiar scene: a man enters a bus and begins speaking as if he were a pastor. At first, the passengers look wary, but they gradually listen. By the end, he leaves not a Bible, but the Brazilian Constitution: a reminder that this is the only book that guarantees democracy, and that democracy remains the best system to protect our rights.

The film went viral nationwide, becoming a cultural phenomenon. Unfortunately, it was later misappropriated by the candidate who would go on to become president, who circulated a version of the film with his own signature. The story of that appropriation is part of Brazil’s recent history, but so is the lesson that democracy must always be defended and protected.