Brazil’s Artists Love Lula. They Just Want Him to Fix the Culture Ministry First.
Hundreds of filmmakers, actors and writers have signed a manifesto backing the president’s re-election, with a very Brazilian catch: it comes with a to-do list.
Endorsements in an election year are normally love letters. This one reads more like a performance review that ends with a hug.
Last month, a group of more than 100 artists, intelectuals and producers launched a manifesto backing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s re-election. Its title, “A cultura está com Lula e pede mudanças” (“Culture is with Lula and asks for change”), tells you most of what you need to know. Early signatories included filmmaker Tata Amaral, visual artist Rosana Paulino, actor Lázaro Ramos and Caio Blat. Within a week the list had grown fivefold to more than 550 names.
The gratitude is real. The signatories say the far right abolished the Culture Ministry and spent years attacking artists and cultural workers, and that Lula kept his 2022 promise to bring it back and put money behind it. But they also say the practical results of the ministry’s return “remain timid”.
So what do they want? Not just more cash. They want a leap in quality, not only in budget, in how the next Lula government understands and runs culture. They want a ministry that stops being little more than a manager of grant calls and tax-incentive laws, and builds coherent policy for bodies like Ancine, Iphan and Funarte. They also want a fight with the big tech platforms: the text attacks the routing of culture money through parliamentary amendments and calls for measures against streaming services, betting houses and tech giants. Organisers have since pushed for a new leadership at the ministry, in tune with contemporary challenges, which in a polite country is a way of saying someone should probably be replaced.
The timing matters. Lula faces Flávio Bolsonaro, and celebrities have lined up on both sides.
Maria Bethânia flashed an “L” at a São Paulo festival and told the crowd she votes Lula. Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil and Daniela Mercury have appeared in the “Bora Lula” clip, a flip of the opposition’s old “Fora Lula” slogan. Actor Malu Mader said in a video that Brazilian cinema “has been reborn”.
Here is the awkward bit. The manifesto’s real audience may be less the voter in Leblon than the minister in Brasília: vote for him, the signatories say, but then please do something with the ministry. It is hard to think of a more Brazilian way to endorse a president.
