THE CINEMA AS A RESOURCE IN THE TEACHING OF AFRO-BRAZILIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

DISCUSSIONS, PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

The political action of the black social movement in the educational sphere contributed to the construction and approval of Law 10.639 / 2003, which made it compulsory to teach Afro-Brazilian History of Africa and Culture in the Basic Education curriculum throughout Brazil. This law, built in the light of a reality of struggle of the black population, points to the need to promote a re-education of ethnic-racial relations in the country, in order to combat racist ideas and practices that still persist in remaining in the popular imagination and in the social relationships. Even with some advances, there is still a lack of methodological proposals for the implementation of said law in the classroom. In this perspective, the proposal of this article is to present the methodological possibilities, the advantages and the risks of the use of cinema as didactic resource in the teaching of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture. The objective is to present the representations of blacks in the first phase of Cinema Novo (1960-1964). The approach is part of Cultural History proposed by Chartier (1988), in which elements were sought to understand films as historical sources and as part of a cultural experience. Thus appropriating cinema and putting it at the service of the teaching of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture is a challenge that requires us to deepen our knowledge about the specificities of cinematographic language, its aesthetic, social and cultural dimensions, of its limits and possibilities.