The Deaths of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
The brutal murders of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira took place in a region, the Javari Valley, beset by a profitable vortex of clandestine economies, resource plunder and land grabbing which the present government does almost nothing to discourage or suppress.
Brazil: the influence of the ’18 of the Fort’
How a short-lived rebellion in 1922 by a tiny group of army officers inspired the 'tenentes' movement, influenced the 1964 military coup, and is still remembered today in street names, monuments and, perhaps, by a military debating its position in the 2022 elections.
Brazil: orphan mothers
Anti-Black violence by the Police targets young men in Brazil's favelas and makes their mothers 'orphans'. Their trauma and spectacular resistance are highlighted in this new film, reviwed for LAB by Jessica Pandian
Brazil: democracy at risk, media to blame
Using Brazil as a case study, the film The Coup d’État Factory uncovers and dissects the media's role in creating conditions to dismantle democracy, paving the way for the far-right.
Brazil: not only bad, but mad
Jair Bolsonaro has launched a frontal assault on the same electoral system which brought him to the presidency. This is part of a three-pronged strategy to discredit Brazil's democracy and refuse to accept any outcome other than his own victory
Brazil: letter for democracy
Recalling the famous 1977 Letter for Democracy, the 2022 Carta pela Democracia has gathered more than a million signatures from lawyers, academics, trade unionists, black leaders, business leaders and trades unionists -- all warning against any attempt by Bolsonaro to stage a coup if he should lose the presidential election
Brazil: fighting desertification in Paraíba
In Brazil’s semi-arid northeast, family farmers are using technology and collective resource management to fight climate change and environmental degradation.
Amazon: crime without punishment
At least 58 indigenous people were killed in the Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian Amazon between 2016 and 2021. In this article, Mongabay outlines the patterns, the involvement of state actors and the cloud of impunity surrounding these crimes
The Amazon: is this the Third World War?
What is happening in the Amazon is a war -- against the rainforest, its original inhabitants, and also against the rest of the world. Perhaps this is the Third World War, the war to end all wars?
A dystopian reflection of Brazilian society
In a favela on the edge of Brasília, a group of women hijack a pipeline to sell oil to their community. A mixture of observational documentary, gangster film and science fiction, in which amateur actors play fictionalized versions of themselves