Cinema, memory and human rights education The use of films in the classroom and the dispute over the narrative about the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship

Abstract

In this work, we propose a reflection on the relation between cinema, memory and human rights education, willing to think about the uses of audiovisual products as complementary tools in the classroom. We intend to demonstrate, through an analytical methodology, how the use – and the choice – of these tools can serve both to promote the formation of critical subjects committed to social transformation and to consolidate hegemonic versions of the past that stimulate passivity in the face of socio-historical reality. In a first moment, we present some considerations about cinema, memory and human rights education. Later, we analyse the films Four Days in September and Baptism of Blood, both about the civil-military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985). The movies serve as examples of different ways of representing the past and demonstrate the multiple tensions surrounding the construction of memory over that period.