Apocalypse in the Tropics

Petra Costa is a Brazilian filmmaker whose latest project The Edge of Democracy won a Peabody and Platino award for Best Documentary and was nominated for an Academy Award. It premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, won best director at DOC NYC, and was described in the New York Times as an "absolutely vital documentary" and one of the "10 Best Films of 2019." Petra's first feature Elena, premiered at IDEA and won eleven prizes; it was the most watched documentary in Brazil in 2013 and in 2014. Petra also director Olmo and the Seagull and produce Moara Passoni's debut Extase (CPH:DOX 2020). She has a degree in Anthropology from Barnard College at Columbia University and a Masters in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics. 

Alessandra Orofino is a writer, director, and producer whose work focuses on politics and activism. She has been the showrunner on the weekly comedy news show Greg News on HBO for the past four years and is also an experienced co-founder and nonprofit leader. In 2011, she launched NOSSAS, a Brazilian NGO that aims to support, train and mobilize activists all over Brazil. Prior to that, she was a founding team member and head of the Brazil office at Purpose, a New York-based agency that uses public mobilization and storytelling to help organizations, businesses and philanthropies build out their social change strategies. Alessandra has written about Brazilian politics for the New York Times, where she recently produced a video commenting on Bolsonaro's mishandling of the Covid pandemic. In 2014, she spoke at the TEDGlobal stage about activism in Brazilian cities. In 2019, she was selected as a Fellow for the Obama Foundation. She has a degree in Economics and Human Rights from Barnard College at Columbia University.