Making Films in a Brazilian Slum with Children: a Participant Observation Research

Abstract

This article stands for innovative learning opportunities to social inclusion by film education. The theoretical model is a combined structure coming from approaches and projects of social inclusion by film education. The aim is to describe and analyze the film education process in a project outside school. This research is based on a participant observation research conducted on children in a Brazilian slum. Cinema, as other art forms, is a political and ideological tool that can be used with different purposes. Film education is a strong mediator to facilitate transformative learning, changing one’s dysfunctional views and beliefs about oneself and the world by revising their frames of reference (Mezirow & Taylor, 2009). Films have a unique ability to promote empathy towards a role model, and promote resilience in situations similar to those the role model goes through. Furthermore, media, such as films, is capable of reaching people that might otherwise be uninterested (Buckingham, 2007; Gonnet, 2007; Silverstone, 2005; UNESCO, 2013).