O presidente Lula (PT) afirmou que quer os votos de 100% dos presidiários, incluindo o do ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro, pai do adversário do petista, Flávio Bolsonaro (PL). O chefe do Executivo havia perguntado o motivo para o senador ter se posicionado contra a prisão de Bruno Delaroli, policial militar responsável pela bala perdida que matou a menina Ana Clara Machado, de cinco anos, no Rio de Janeiro.
Flávio, no entanto, não respondeu a pergunta e rebateu: “Lula, com você, a criminalidade explodiu no Brasil. Inclusive, você pode responder por que 73% dos presidiários votaram em você?”, e o petista disse: “Eu quero 100% dos votos dos presidiários, até do seu pai”.
Condenação de Jair Bolsonaro
Jair Bolsonaro foi condenado a mais de 27 anos de prisão pelo STF (Supremo Tribunal Federal) por participar de um plano de golpe de Estado para impedir que Lula assumisse a Presidência da República. O ex-presidente se encontra em prisão domiciliar. (Anna Júlia Lopes/FOLHAPRESS)
A aposentada Elizabete Oliveira Gregório, 72, é eleitora de Lula (PT) desde a primeira vez em que o ex-metalúrgico se candidatou à Presidência, em 1989. Nascida numa pequena cidade do Paraná, ela diz que teve contato com os ideais do atual presidente quando se mudou para Guarulhos, em São Paulo.
“Meu esposo sempre falava muito que ele era trabalhador, uma pessoa pobre igual todo mundo”, ela conta, admitindo que, apesar de não entender muito de política à época, repetiu o voto do marido, nesta e nas eleições seguintes, acreditando na confiança que ele depositava no sindicalista.
Elizabete mora em Ribeirão das Neves, na região metropolitana de Belo Horizonte, desde a década de 1990. Com 330 mil habitantes, a periférica cidade é um dos dez maiores colégios eleitorais de Minas Gerais e tem se destacado, nos últimos anos, como um município-chave para observar as idas e vindas da polarização hoje corrente no país.
Antigo reduto petista que deu ampla vantagem a Lula e a Dilma Rousseff (PT) nas eleições de 2002 a 2014, Ribeirão das Neves tem apresentado um movimento de gangorra em relação aos últimos posicionamentos políticos da maioria de seus habitantes e seguido, à risca, o cenário das eleições nacionais.
Jair Bolsonaro (PL) venceu por lá em 2018, eleito em segundo turno com 59,59% dos votos válidos, e Lula retomou a dianteira do PT em 2022, por uma estreita margem de 50,63%. No primeiro turno deste ano, a cidade escolheu Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), que marcou 46,53% dos votos válidos, ante 43,93% de Lula.
Elizabete, que é evangélica, diz nunca ter mudado de opinião. Ela guarda a lembrança da primeira vez que foi ao banco, para fazer um empréstimo e adquirir um cartão de crédito, conquista que dedica à gestão do petista. “Eu creio que, se ele ganhasse agora, seria bom como foi das outras vezes”, diz.
Eleitores mudam de posição e criticam governos
Lula também foi o candidato escolhido em 2022 por Marcelo Augusto, 23. Ele é comerciante numa loja de roupas e atualmente faz curso de barbeiro. “Foi meu pior arrependimento. O cara não fez nada”, ele diz.
No primeiro turno das eleições deste ano, votou em Flávio, escolha que pretende manter para o segundo. “Não é que ele seja meu candidato favorito, mas eu acho melhor dar uma chance pra ele, que está chegando agora, do que deixar o PT, que não fez nada nesses 20 anos de governo”, explica, citando ainda a repercussão dos escândalos do mensalão e do Banco Master.
Marcelo acredita que a polarização política na cidade se dá porque muitas pessoas não sabem por que votam, e cita o próprio exemplo -ele diz que votou no Lula no último pleito por influência da mãe, que vê no petista um bom presidente.
“Eu acredito que muitas pessoas não estudam e não procuram saber em quem estão votando, e vão muito na onda dos outros”, ele diz, definindo-se hoje como uma pessoa de extrema direita.
Ele justifica a posição afirmando ser contra algumas bandeiras que entende serem defendidas pela esquerda, como a questão do aborto e pautas relacionadas à defesa da diversidade de gênero e orientação sexual.
Marcelo também é crítico à PEC do fim da escala 6×1, promulgada nesta sexta-feira (16) após aprovação por ampla maioria na Câmara e no Senado. “Um descanso a mais sim, mas eu sou a favor do poder de compra. Não adianta a pessoa ter um dia de folga e não ter condições de comprar nada”, afirma.
Na sua opinião, um eventual governo Flávio tem chance de ser melhor do que a gestão de seu pai, Jair. “Tomara, porque, se também não for, daqui a quatro anos, eu voto em outra pessoa. Eu sou desse jeito.”
Ele assume a vontade de entrar para a política no futuro e diz que suas principais bandeiras seriam o combate à corrupção e à criminalidade.
A escolha por Flávio é a mesma da freelancer Cynthia Miriam, 45, que afirma nunca ter votado no PT. “O governo Bolsonaro parece que deixou o Brasil com dinheiro no cofre, né? Quem sabe não acontece o mesmo?”, diz.
Abstenção e votos nulos refletem insatisfação
Já Lael Chaves, 32, se considera uma pessoa de centro e disse que não votou em ninguém no primeiro turno, decisão que ele afirma manter para o segundo. “Como uma forma de protesto”, explica.
Ele trabalha com sua bicicleta como entregador de uma plataforma de delivery, e conversou brevemente com a reportagem em uma pausa entre pedidos.
“Entra político, sai político e o país está sempre pior”, ele afirma. “A inflação está sempre aumentando e o poder de compra do brasileiro diminuindo, seja nas gestões de esquerda ou de direita.”
Ele considera que as propostas de ambos os presidenciáveis funcionam como fachada para que os candidatos defendam interesses pessoais. “Eu sou contra a classe política atual, não tem ninguém que me represente”, diz, citando Lula, Flávio Bolsonaro e Renan Santos (Missão), que ficou em quarto lugar no primeiro turno.
A justificativa se assemelha às razões da estudante de direito Tainá dos Santos, 22, para votar nulo em todos os cargos eletivos, do Executivo e do Legislativo, desde que esteve apta a participar do processo, aos 16 anos.
“Tem essa opinião das minhas colegas, sempre falando comigo da importância da política e do voto feminino, mas, apesar de me importar com questões feministas, eu nunca quis escolher alguém e nunca me dei esse trabalho”, ela conta. “É uma opinião normal, a minha.”
Ela questiona como o seu voto, 1 entre os 158,7 milhões de eleitores brasileiros, poderia influenciar a porcentagem alcançada pelos candidatos em primeiro turno. “Será que o meu voto mudaria alguma coisa? Eu cheguei à conclusão de que não e pretendo continuar assim, votando nulo.”
Ela conta que a sua família é bastante ligada às questões políticas. “Aqueles votantes doentes, sabe?”, ela diz, contudo, afirmando não saber se eles pendem mais para o PT ou o PL.
“Nunca quis participar dessas conversas, que sempre acabam em discussão. Não gosto de violência e dessas trocas que são muito invasivas”, diz a estudante.
Apoiadores de Lula defendem reeleição
Estudantes realizam ato a favor da reeleição de Lula | Foto: Reprodução
Outros estudantes realizaram um ato a favor da reeleição de Lula na noite de quinta-feira (15) e passaram a tarde no centro comercial da cidade convocando público para a manifestação.
A artista e assistente social Nádia Nascimento, 37, era uma das que estavam panfletando e balançando a bandeira do petista numa das principais vias do município, confiante na virada do atual presidente. “Estou hoje aqui, no meu dia de folga, porque acredito na democracia.”
Ela afirma que a direita desconstruiu Ribeirão das Neves, cidade que, na sua avaliação, funciona por meio de políticas públicas para a população. Segundo Nádia, isso ocorre desde a eleição do prefeito Junynho Martins, então pelo PSC, em 2016. Ele foi reeleito pelo DEM em 2020. Hoje, a cidade é governada por Túlio Raposo (PP).
“Nessas eleições, acho que Neves infelizmente deu uma mancada. A população que votou na direita foi um pouco ingrata”, ela diz.
Neste ano, 45.450 pessoas deixaram de votar no primeiro turno na cidade, o que representa uma taxa de abstenção de 20,79%. Os votos em branco somaram 3,05% do eleitorado, enquanto 3,58% anularam o voto.
Eleitor ainda não decidiu voto no segundo turno
Nei de Lima, 43, não revelou o voto no pleito deste ano, mas diz que votou em Bolsonaro em 2018 e em Lula nas eleições de 2022, escolha que reverbera a maioria conquistada pelos candidatos na cidade nos respectivos pleitos.
“Votei no Bolsonaro porque achei que ia ter uma mudança, o PT já estava no controle do país há alguns anos”, conta o motorista de aplicativo. “Como não teve uma mudança significativa, votei no Lula de novo na última eleição.”
Neste segundo turno, ele ainda não sabe em quem vai votar. Do último governo Lula, diz estar insatisfeito com o valor do salário mínimo e com as altas taxas de feminicídio, que no primeiro trimestre deste ano atingiram um novo patamar recorde. “Dá pra melhorar nesses quesitos”, ele opina.
Na sua opinião, Flávio poderia representar uma mudança frente ao que já está posto. “Mas se essa mudança vai ser pra melhor a gente só vai ver depois.” (Gabriel Araújo/FOLHAPRESS)
O presidente Lula (PT) atacou a Globo nesta sexta-feira (16), durante um ato de campanha em Ipatinga, no Vale do Aço mineiro, ao falar de um almoço de Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) com a direção da emissora.
O petista insinuou que a empresa estaria contrariada com medidas de seu governo e afirmou que ela está sob suspeição.
“Ele Flávio Bolsonaro foi almoçar com a direção da Globo no dia da entrevista dele”, disse Lula, referindo-se à participação de Flávio em sabatina prevista nesta noite, depois do fim do Jornal Nacional.
Lula acusa Globo de parcialidade
“Certamente a Globo está com raiva de mim porque eu acabei com as bets e ela tinha a bet. Certamente a Globo está com raiva de mim porque aprovamos o fim da escala 6×1. Certamente ela está com raiva de mim porque ela sabe que vou dar o transporte gratuito no final de semana para o povo brasileiro poder passear com a sua família. Ela deve estar com raiva porque ela sabe que fomos nós que prendemos o Vorcaro”, afirmou.
“Então eu quero dizer para vocês que, a partir de hoje, a Globo está sob suspeição da minha candidatura. Não merece confiança. Não merece”, acrescentou.
A Globo confirmou que Flávio foi recebido pelo presidente do Grupo Globo, João Roberto Marinho, e pelo vice-presidente de Relações Institucionais, Paulo Tonet, na sede da empresa, no Rio de Janeiro.
Em nota, afirmou que o encontro teve caráter institucional e não contou com a participação de dirigentes do jornalismo. A emissora disse ainda que Lula também teria sido recebido caso tivesse solicitado uma visita. O petista participou da sabatina na quinta-feira (15).
O almoço já havia provocado reação na campanha petista. À Folha o ministro da Secretaria de Comunicação de Lula, Sidônio Palmeira, classificou o encontro como grave e questionou a imparcialidade da emissora, sobretudo por ter ocorrido no mesmo dia da entrevista de Flávio.
Lula pede votos e critica governo Bolsonaro
Durante a passeata, Lula também pediu aos apoiadores que buscassem votos entre os eleitores que não escolheram sua candidatura no primeiro turno. O presidente voltou a criticar o governo Jair Bolsonaro e mencionou as mortes provocadas pela pandemia de Covid-19.
“Vocês lembram das pessoas morrendo asfixiadas por falta de oxigênio? E por falta de vacina?”, afirmou. “É muito importante que a gente não permita que o Brasil retroceda.”
A mobilização reuniu aliados como o ministro Alexandre Silveira, a ex-prefeita de Contagem e senadora eleita Marília Campos, o ministro Rui Costa, eleito senador pela Bahia, e o governador reeleito do Piauí, Rafael Fonteles.
O presidente interrompeu a passeata em diferentes momentos para pedir que os participantes evitassem empurrões. “Não adianta. Se a gente não tomar cuidado, as pessoas vão cair e vão se machucar”, disse.
Janja reage a gesto de apoiador
Em outro momento, a primeira-dama Rosângela da Silva, a Janja, reagiu a um aparente gesto ofensivo de uma pessoa que acompanhava a passagem da comitiva de uma residência.
“Colega, pega esse dedo e enfia no coração. Aqui é só amor. Coloca no coração”, afirmou. (Aléxia Sousa/FOLHAPRESS)
On October 25, Brazilians will return to the polls to choose between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in an attempted coup. The first round gave Flávio 47% of valid votes against Lula’s 45%, revealing the enduring strength of the far right four years after its electoral defeat. The runoff takes place as Donald Trump seeks to restore US domination over Latin America, with Brazil emerging as a consequential battleground in Washington’s campaign to contain China’s growing relations with the region.
Over the past two decades, Brazil and China have built a political partnership that has expanded the space for independent action among countries of the Global South. Under Lula and Xi Jinping, this relationship has deepened through cooperation in industrial development, infrastructure, science, and technology. The election will determine whether this project advances or Brazil’s international orientation is subordinated to Washington’s renewed Monroe Doctrine as part of the continent’s rightward shift.
Since Lula’s return to the presidency in 2023, the two governments have connected Chinese cooperation with Brazil’s development programs, including Nova Indústria Brasil, the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), and the Ecological Transformation Plan. Lula’s May 2025 visit to Beijing produced 36 agreements covering infrastructure, finance, artificial intelligence, public health, and industrial cooperation. Behind these agreements is a long-standing challenge: overcoming Brazil’s dependent position in the international division of labor, where commodity exports continue to outweigh advanced industrial and technological development.
This cooperation has also reached Brazilian popular movements. Through the International Association for Popular Cooperation (Baobab), Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) and other organizations have worked with Chinese institutions on agricultural mechanization, bioinputs, and digital technologies for family farming. These initiatives include the Digital Family Farming and Agroecology Laboratory and IARAA, an artificial intelligence project for agroecology and agrarian reform developed by Brazilian popular movements using Chinese open-source models. In a countryside marked by extreme concentrations of land, machinery, and capital, such cooperation offers new tools to peasant organizations fighting for agrarian reform and the production of healthy food.
Brazil’s relationship with China also reveals the different class interests at work in the country, with contradictions particularly visible in the countryside. Massive exports of soybeans, meat, and minerals have continued under both Bolsonaro and Lula, but their governments have pursued very different political relationships with Beijing. While Jair Bolsonaro attacked China and aligned himself with Washington, Lula has sought to deepen strategic cooperation, including in industrial development, technology, and agrarian reform. Flávio Bolsonaro now promises an “economically pragmatic” relationship with China while cultivating close ties with Trump. For sectors of Brazil’s ruling classes that profit from commodity exports, continuing to sell to China while embracing Washington’s political agenda presents little contradiction. For Brazil’s efforts to rebuild its industry and develop technological sovereignty, the consequences are far greater.
The return of the Monroe Doctrine
Washington’s ambitions were made explicit in its November 2025 National Security Strategy, which announced a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, seeking to restore US pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere and deny outside powers control over strategic resources and infrastructure. Five days later, China published its third Latin America policy paper, reaffirming sovereignty, non-interference, regional integration, technological cooperation, and support for the region as a Zone of Peace. The two documents reveal fundamentally different approaches to the political future of the continent.
Brazil’s position is decisive. As Latin America’s largest economy, a founding BRICS member, and a leading participant in Mercosur, it possesses industrial, scientific, and political capacities that could strengthen independent development across Latin America and beyond.
The emergence of a new technological era makes this struggle particularly consequential. Brazil is among the few countries of the Global South capable of pursuing digital and technological sovereignty that could benefit its neighbors and parts of Africa. Its roughly 23% share of global rare earth reserves is an important starting point, but control over minerals alone is insufficient. The greater challenge is developing the capacity to process them, manufacture advanced components, and build the digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence systems, and technologies that will shape future production.
Flávio has made his orientation clear. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the United States in March 2026, he offered Brazil as the “solution” to Washington’s dependence on China for critical minerals, explicitly linking rare earths to artificial intelligence and US military superiority. Chinese economic reporting has also described proposals from his team to exclude China from rare-earth supply chains. Rather than using Brazil’s resources to develop its own industrial and technological capacities, this agenda would place them at the service of US technological and military power.
The same political orientation extends to digital sovereignty. In July 2026, Flávio’s campaign submitted proposals to US trade authorities that included preventing Brazil’s Pix payment system from connecting to non-Western international payment networks and loosening commitments within Mercosur. These proposals converge with a wider US campaign involving tariffs, digital regulation, strategic minerals, and attempts to influence Brazil’s electoral process. Meanwhile, Washington’s January 2026 bombing on Venezuela and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores demonstrated how far it is prepared to go to impose its will on the continent.
BRICS and the struggle for an independent foreign policy
Brazil, particularly under Lula, has helped build institutions through which countries of the Global South can reduce their dependence on Western-dominated structures. At the July 2025 BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, the group advanced cooperation on development finance, local-currency transactions, and international institutional reform. The New Development Bank, headed by former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, is an important expression of this effort.
The BRICS cannot automatically overcome economic dependency or guarantee sovereignty for working people. Yet its expansion offers greater room for independent development, provided that participating governments have the political commitment to use these possibilities.
Brazil’s history reveals how difficult that independence has been to defend. In 1961, vice-president João Goulart became the first high-ranking representative of a Latin American government to visit the People’s Republic of China, meeting Mao Zedong when revolutionary China remained diplomatically isolated and subjected to US sanctions. Three years later, Goulart was overthrown in a US-backed civil-military coup that inaugurated a 21-year dictatorship. The early history of China–Brazil friendship was inseparable from struggles over national sovereignty, agrarian reform, and the forces determined to suppress them.
The international material conditions for South–South cooperation are considerably more favorable today, but political direction remains decisive. Jair Bolsonaro hosted the 2019 BRICS summit in Brasília while pursuing close alignment with Washington. A government can weaken institutions from within by abandoning the commitments that give them political substance.
The far right’s resurgence also reflects the enduring power of Brazil’s own ruling classes. Bolsonarismo has a domestic base among sections of agribusiness, finance, the security apparatus, militias, conservative religious networks, and major media. These forces, whose electoral and institutional advances have continued, were strengthened by the 2016 parliamentary coup against Dilma Rousseff and the judicial persecution of Lula. They possess their own organizations, material interests, and sources of power, which do not disappear when an election is lost. Their economic dependence on Chinese markets has not prevented their support for Washington’s political agenda.
Beyond the election
Beijing has followed the Brazilian election closely, reflecting the importance of the political relationship built between Lula and Xi over years of cooperation. In July, Xi reaffirmed China’s support for Brazil against external interference during a conversation with Lula, which also covered cooperation in artificial intelligence, satellites, mineral processing, and relations between China and Mercosur. In September, Foreign Minister Wang Yi received Lula’s adviser and former foreign minister Celso Amorim in Beijing, reaffirming the bilateral strategic partnership.
China’s principle of non-interference means that the choice of Brazil’s government belongs to the Brazilian people, but Beijing’s diplomatic restraint should not be confused with an absence of political interests or an assumption that all governments would pursue the same relationship. Chinese analysts have described the possible outlook under Flávio as one of “cold politics, hot economics”: commodity trade would likely continue, but the political relationship and cooperation in strategic sectors could deteriorate. The experience of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency has already shown the limits of commercial interests in sustaining a broader political partnership.
For the Brazilian people, the consequences extend well beyond foreign policy. The election will also shape the struggles over labor rights, public services, agrarian reform, and the defence of democratic space. Brazil’s renewed role in South–South cooperation under Lula has opened possibilities for a development project that responds to the needs of its working people, but realizing those possibilities depends on the political and social forces capable of carrying it forward.
The Brazilian people have fought through dictatorship, neoliberal restructuring, parliamentary coups, and the rise of the far right to defend their political and social gains. This election is another moment in that longer struggle, now unfolding amid renewed US imperial intervention and a transformation of the world’s technological foundations. The future of China–Brazil cooperation will depend on the capacity of organized popular forces to build a sovereign national project and turn international cooperation into lasting changes in people’s lives.
In May, now-presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, shared on his social media a “leaked” trailer for an upcoming biopic about his father. The “most anticipated movie of the year,” Flávio said then, would depict the story of a “true hero.” In the trailer, which had a “disclosure prohibited” watermark, a wig-wearing Jim Caviezel—the American Hollywood actor perhaps most famous for his role as Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 The Passion of the Christ—plays Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for a failed coup attempt after his 2022 electoral defeat.
Director Cyrus Nowrasteh describedDark Horse as a “tense political thriller about power, media, and faith under fire.” The movie’s trailer, which centers on Bolsonaro’s first presidential run and rise to power in 2018, frames the ex-president as “the voice of the people” and a leader who “fought the system” that tried to silence him. It includes a dramatic reenactment of his stabbing during the campaign. “IF YOU CARE ABOUT OUR ELECTIONS,” Caviezel, who is also known for the more recent Sound of Freedom, posted on Instagram earlier this year, “watch my newest film coming out September 11, 2026!”
The production company behind the movie advertised it on X. “A trailer that circulated online was enough to put The Dark Horse at the center of discussions for months,” says the post in Portuguese. “Now, anticipation continues to grow for one of the most awaited international productions inspired by events that marked Brazil.”
That September 11 date went by and the movie, which was shot in English, has yet to be released in Brazil; it won’t come out before the first round in a nail-biting presidential race set for Sunday, October 4. These federal elections, which include congressional and gubernatorial races alongside the presidential contest, have been dogged by accusations of meddling by the Trump administration, prompting incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to send a clear message to the US leader: “Brazil does not fit in anyone’s backyard.” While Dark Horse has not featured as a centerpiece in that conversation, it has certainly had its own share of controversy even before hitting the big screen.
The Brazil-US joint production has become the subject of an ongoing investigation that has sent shockwaves through the presidential campaign of one of the main candidates in a high-stakes, knife-edge election. Brazilian authorities are actively looking into the financing of the movie by a now-disgraced businessman accused of leading one of the biggest bank frauds in the country’s history. That financial scandal involves banker Daniel Vorcaro, former owner of the liquidated Banco Master, who is jailed for alleged fraud in a complex billion-dollar scheme involving worthless credit portfolios. The imbroglio has rocked the 214-million-people nation and thrown the Brazilian Supreme Court into an unprecedented institutional crisis, ensnaring justices, including Alexandre de Moraes—a polarizing figure credited by some with having stopped Bolsonaro’s coup plot and vilified by others for judicial overreach—and high-profile politicians and public officials with alleged ties to Vorcaro.
Among them is Brazilian senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who is cited in the investigation by Brazil’s federal police into the financing of the movie for “possible participation” in alleged crimes involving “money laundering, illicit capital flight, corruption, and other related offenses.” Last May, the Intercept Brasil exposed audio recordings and messages exchanged between Flávio and Vorcaro in which the senator asks the banker for money to fund Dark Horse. Documents from the federal police indicate Flávio was a “direct interlocutor” in negotiating with Vorcaro about the financing of the movie production.
The bombshell reporting revealed that Flávio, the primary opponent facing off against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who’s vying for re-election, negotiated a $24-million-dollar investment from Vorcaro. At the time, documents obtained by the Intercept Brasil showed that Vorcaro had made payments for the movie adding up to at least $10.6 million, between February and May 2025; the total has since climbed to $12.3 million, according to the federal police.
In a voice message to Vorcaro from September 2025, Flávio pressed the banker on pending payments, stressing the importance of getting the movie across the finish line. “Imagine us defaulting on Jim Caviezel, on Cyrus [Nowrasteh], these guys, man, hugely renowned in American and global cinema. Man, that would be really bad,” Flávio said in the audio, a transcription of which is cited in the federal police’s inquiry. He added: “Now that we’re in the final stretch, we can’t slip up, we can’t fail to honor the commitments here, because otherwise we lose everything.”
The Bolsonaro camp had high hopes for Dark Horse, originally projected for release three weeks before election day. “We’ll touch the hearts of a lot of people,” congressman Mário Frias, who was involved in the development of the project and is also named in the investigation, told Vorcaro, “and it will be very important for our country.” Ahead of the election, Flávio Bolsonaro, the presidential hopeful, has found himself having to provide explanations. He has dismissed the payments from Vorcaro as “private sponsorship” for a private project, underscoring that no public funds were used in the movie, and denied any wrongdoing.
A $2,000 rental wig for Jim Caviezel
Unsealed court documents state that payment transfers for Dark Horse were made via an intermediary company and processed through the Texas-based Havengate Development Fund managed by a Brazilian lawyer close to Flávio’s brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is self-exiled in the United States since last year following a lawmaker’s request for him to be investigated for allegedly lobbying against Brazil’s national interests. This June, Eduardo, who was stripped of his congressional seat for being absent, was convicted of “coercion” for attempting to secure interference from the Trump administration on Brazil’s internal affairs; he sought to persuade them to impose tariffs on Brazil and sanctions on Brazilian justices to help his father’s case.
Investigators looking into the origins of the money and its destination have raised the “hypothesis” that Eduardo, who lives in Texas, “directed the management of resources on foreign soil.” They also are investigating whether funds from Havengate may have been used to cover Eduardo’s living expenses, according to multiplereports by Brazilian media outlets. Flávio has maintained that all the resources allocated to the fund went towards the movie production.
On X, Eduardo has denied receiving money from the Texas fund, saying his immigration status wouldn’t have allowed it. (He has recently obtained a green card.) “During my immigration process,” he said, “I explained to the American authorities the whole origin of my assets and I didn’t have any problems.” He added that “all the investments were made in the US because the production was American, with American actors.”
Agência Pública, Brazil’s largest nonprofit newsroom, recently reported on Eduardo’s lavish lifestyle; he resides in a luxury home in Southlake, owns a $43,800 SUV, and travels frequently—20 times in 18 months—including to attend a gala at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, watch a World Cup match in Miami, and surf in Abu Dhabi. Eduardo has previously explained his financial circumstances by saying he lives off of “passive income.”
The former lawmaker denied having any management role in Dark Horse, but a production contract signed in 2024 and obtained by the Intercept Brasil mentioned the ex-congressman as an executive producer in the movie. In response to the article, Eduardo said that he had signed a contract when the project was still in the early stages and invested $50,000 to get a Hollywood director attached to the movie, but he was later repaid and left the project once other investors were secured. Agência Pública contacted Eduardo’s press team but didn’t hear back before publication.
Go UP Entertainment, the US-based production company behindDark Horse, is led by Karina Ferreira da Gama and Michael Brian Davis. (Ferreira da Gama and an NGO she directs are the target of a separate inquiry into whether public money was used to finance the movie.) According to an audit commissioned by Go UP, production costs in Brazil were $3.73 million. Costs in the United States amounted to $9.66 million—or more than 70 percent of the movie’s roughly $13-million reported spending. The expenses in the United States, according to the audit, included soft production, pre-production, project development, filming, and post-production. On LinkedIn, a production manager who worked on the movie described it as “the largest-budget feature filmed entirely in Brazil.”
The movie’s reported expenses have raised eyebrows among industry insiders, who have compared the numbers to those of an Oscar-worthy production. The company spent $2,000 on a rental wig for Caviezel and about $135,000 in hotel accommodation for the star and his agent and security, based on bank statements and invoices provided to the federal police. ”It’s not a film that will be nominated for an Oscar,” Wilson Feitosa, director of the company responsible for the distribution of Dark Horse, toldO Globo newspaper. “It won’t be in contention for a nomination, but it has that Hollywood seal of quality.”
The federal police noted that, even accounting for “complex variables” in estimating the costs of film productions, there was an “apparent mismatch between the projected cost of the production of Dark Horse and the parameters usually practiced in the Brazilian audiovisual market,” saying it warranted further investigation into the “effective allocation of resources” and the purpose of the operation.
“A nightmare for the Left”
Registered in Florida since 2021, Go UP Entertainment listed, until recently, its place of business as Davis’ home address in Raleigh, North Carolina. In June 2026, the address was changed to a commercial location in the same city. The company’s website only mentions an address in Westlake Village, California. A google search for that address leads to another production company, Damascus Road Productions, focused on “family and faith content.” (Ryan O’Quinn, the president of Damascus Road Productions, has promotedDark Horse on his social media and is listed on the movie’s IMDb page as a producer. He didn’t respond to an email with questions or return a voicemail message.)
“Go UP Entertainment hereby clarifies that it conducts its business activities and the production of the film Dark Horse in a documented and transparent manner and in compliance with its contractual obligations,” the company said in a statement to the Brazilian magazine Piauí. In an email, Davis declined an interview for this article, saying “we will not provide comments on confidential budgets, private agreements and contracts, or unrelated business matters.”
Go UP’s website, which appears to have been revamped this year, states that the company “was born from the union of two creative forces: Go 7 and UP Tone.” Go 7 seems to be a reference to a different company operated by Davis’ co-partner Ferreira da Gama in Brazil. Go 7, which has reportedly never released a movie or TV production in the country, has its registration status with Ancine—the Brazilian regulatory film agency—listed as “irregular.” (Go UP Entertainment’s status is “regular” and Ancine grantedDark Horse a foreign work registration.)
Uptone Pictures is a self-described “independent film production company” in North Carolina that names the Dark Horse producer, Davis, as founder and executive producer. The movie releases featured on Go UP’s page appear to be examples of Uptone’s previous work. Among them are the 2014 A Long Way Off, a modern-day retelling of the prodigal son parable; Paul’s Promise from 2022, a Christian drama about a “firefighter-turned-pastor” produced and starred by O’Quinn; and the Brazilian-American Destiny Road, based on a book by a televangelist. Uptone Pictures listsDark Horse as one of its credited productions. On Facebook, the company calls itself “your fixer in Brazil.”
Davis has Brazilian citizenship and lived in Brazil in the 1980s, where he learned Portuguese and became a São Paulo soccer team fan, before moving to the United States, according to the BBC News Brasil. Besides Go UP Entertainment and Uptone Pictures, he’s linked to several other entertainment businesses in North Carolina, some of which have beendissolved over the years.
Davis has reportedly said that, on the advice of lawyers, he won’t hand over Go UP’s company documents without a judicial order in the United States. The producer wrote in an email to his business partner included in the investigation that “requests from Brazilian authorities involving documents or data under American jurisdiction must be formalized exclusively through the competent diplomatic and international legal cooperation channels.”
Mother Jones emailed Davis a number of questions about his partnership with Ferreira da Gama, the founding of Go UP Entertainment in 2021, and the company’s office addresses. We also asked him for details about the production and budget of Dark Horse, the company’s audit and expenses in the United States, as well as his reason to refuse a federal police’s request for evidence. Finally, the email included questions about Davis’ business history.
In a note, Davis replied that “given Mother Jones’ far-left editorial orientation and the framing of several of your questions, we do not have confidence that our participation would result in a fair and balanced account of Dark Horse.” He wrote that the “inquiry takes a broad, scattershot approach combining questions about the film with historical business affiliations, registered addresses, and other companies.” Davis also said, “several questions” contained “assumptions, speculations, or characterizations that we do not accept,” but didn’t explain what those were.
Meanwhile, select audiences in the United States have already had a sneak peek of Dark Horse. Back in June, Eduardo attended the first public screening of the movie at the Fraud Fighter Summit in Las Vegas. Speaking at a panel, Eduardo suggested the biopic could have a similar enduring impact to Terminator 2. “This movie,” he said, “is going to be a nightmare for the Left.”
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