Biography
Petra Costa is a Brazilian filmmaker and actress. She first directed the short film Undertow Eyes (2009) which screened at the MoMA and was winner of best short film at Rio Film Festival, Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, London International Documentary Festival among others. She then directed the feature Elena (2012) which premiered at IDFA, followed by SXSW and HotDocs. Elena won many prizes such as best film at Havana Film Festival (2013), was nominated for Best Cinematography a...
Known For
Complete Filmography
Apocalypse in the Tropics
2025
as Self
When does a democracy end and a theocracy begin? In Apocalypse in the Tropics, Petra Costa investigates the increasingly powerful grip Christian evang...
Apocalypse in the Tropics
2025
Director, Producer, Writer
When does a democracy end and a theocracy begin? In Apocalypse in the Tropics, Petra Costa investigates the increasingly powerful grip Christian evang...
Beba
2022
Executive Producer
A raw, poetic self-portrait in which young, NYC-born Afro-Latina Rebeca “Beba” Huntt stares down historical, societal, and generational trauma.
The Edge of Theocracy
2020
as Petra Costa
Jesus life and work goes through rumors, conspiracies, injuries, friendship and fanaticism. An emblematic figure of the 1st century, Jesus was a chari...
Babenco: Tell Me When I Die
2020
Associate Producer
Besieged by cancer and nearing the end, the genius Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco (1946-2016) asks Bárbara Paz, his wife, for one last w...
Ecstasy
2020
Producer
Racked with anxiety in the chaotic political landscape of 1990s Brazil, Clara finds solace in starving herself, experiencing both rapture and torture....
The Edge of Democracy
2019
as Self
A cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis—the personal and political fuse to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian hist...
The Edge of Democracy
2019
Director, Writer, Producer
A cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis—the personal and political fuse to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian hist...
Life in Gray
2017
as Herself
A faux documentary about the ongoing social, political and economical crisis in Brazil, where the government cuts the colors of Rio de Janeiro, turnin...
Nobody's Watching
2017
as Petra
Nico is a famous actor in Argentina, but in New York, nobody takes notice. He needs to juggle bartending, babysitting and odd jobs to keep himself afl...
Olmo and the Seagull
2015
Director, Writer
'Olmo and the Seagull' is a poetic and existential dive into an actress's mind during the nine months of her pregnancy as she must confront her most f...
Elena
2013
as Self
Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of t...
Elena
2013
Director, Writer
Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of t...
Undertow Eyes
2011
Producer, Writer, Director
Vera and Gabriel, an elderly couple, navigate through past and present, telling their own life story. Their remembering, rendered in images from famil...
Secrets of the Tribe
2010
Assistant Editor
What happens when western anthropologists descend on the Amazon and make one of the last unacculturated tribes in existence, the Yanomami, the most ex...