Dystopian Film Envisions a Post-Coup Brazil Handing the Amazon to the U.S.

The short film Vitória Régia (Amazon Water Lily) has drawn attention with its fictional vision of a post-coup Brazil: democracy collapses, the president is assassinated, Congress is dissolved, and the Amazon rainforest and its vast resources are transferred to the United States.

Set in 2025, the film imagines that former President Jair Bolsonaro's plot to overturn the 2022 election succeeds. In reality, the far-right uprising in Brasília failed, and Bolsonaro and his co-conspirators are on trial and jailed. But the film asks: what if that plan had succeeded?

In this alternate world, after a 'green-and-gold dagger revolution' eliminates all opponents, the Brazilian military seizes power, censors the media, purges 'deviant' elements, and hands control of the Amazon to Washington in exchange for support for the coup. A heavy-accented U.S. soldier tells reporters: 'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the American Amazon.' A replica of the Statue of Liberty is erected in the rainforest, symbolizing Washington's patronage.

Brazilian journalists are banned from entering the Amazon without a visa. A dark cover-up is imposed to hide the environmental catastrophe. Indigenous leaders go missing. Amazon X, an oil company run by a U.S. tycoon named Harold Goldman, openly flaunts its rights to extract the forest's resources.

Director Denis Kamioka (known as Cisma) said the film was shot in March 2025, nearly a year before President Donald Trump ordered the kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as part of a plan to 'take back' that country's oil. 'It's scary how much reality and fiction mix... We're constantly competing with reality,' he said.

Actress Alice Braga, who plays the lead character Carol and is an environmental activist, shared: 'It's insane. We're making a fiction film... but then the U.S. takes such a political stance with Trump... and the film almost becomes a documentary.' The 21-minute film, made in partnership with indigenous networks Coiab and Apib, aims to highlight threats to Brazil's indigenous peoples and support their centuries-long struggle to protect traditional lands.

Indigenous actress Ywyzar Tentehar, 23, hopes the project will draw attention to ongoing encroachments: 'Today my territory is demarcated, but loggers, ranchers, and land grabbers keep invading... and nothing is enforced.'

Current Brazilian political tensions amplify these fears. Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son, is preparing to challenge incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in this year's election. During Jair Bolsonaro's 2019-2023 term, anti-environmental and anti-indigenous policies led to skyrocketing deforestation and a gold rush into indigenous lands. Activists fear this destruction could return if another Bolsonaro takes power. In another ominous parallel to the film, Flávio Bolsonaro has been accused of offering the U.S. access to Brazil's rare earth deposits—among the world's largest—in exchange for help in the upcoming October election.

Alice Braga said: 'I'm truly worried. I hope people research the candidates carefully instead of following the path that got us to Bolsonaro's election a few years ago... not just the presidential candidate but also the congressional candidates.'

Graphic designer Pedro Inoue, one of the film's creators, said it is not entirely pessimistic. The pop aesthetic and lively soundtrack aim to counter despair with a positive message about indigenous resilience: 'They are the past, present, and future. They are the ones with the answers on how to deal with the apocalypse because they've been dealing with it for over 500 years.'

Director Kamioka hopes Vitória Régia will serve as 'a warning about what could happen to sovereignty, indigenous resistance, and democracy itself.' He said: 'This isn't a film about a distant future. That's the scariest part. It's about what is happening right now.'