The Institute of Arts (IA) of Unicamp held on Tuesday (22), in the Raízes Auditorium of the Executive Directorate of Human Rights (DeDH), in the Basic Cycle I building, the launch of the book History(s) of Cinema. The event was attended by students in the first year of full-time high school at Escola Estadual Barão Geraldo de Rezende, co-authors of the work, the result of extension work carried out at the school since 2023.
With a multimedia approach, the work summarizes around 130 years of cinema history – from the so-called first cinema to contemporary cinema – and presents the proposed activities and QR codes that provide access to photos, videos and texts produced during the classes.
From this configuration, the material becomes a pedagogical resource for working with cinema as a way of thinking, according to Jean-Luc Godard and his film-poem also called History(s) of Cinema. “Until the immediate post-war period, the basis of thought was articulated language. From the 1960s onwards, the image began to be the great reference in all areas of knowledge, because it is the genesis of all our thought”, stated professor Francisco Elinaldo Teixeira, organizer of the book.
The publication presents content extracted from the disciplines of History of Cinema I and History of Cinema II of the undergraduate course in media studies taught by Teixeira in 2024 – and which supported the lesson plans of an elective discipline offered at the state school. The proposal foresaw the written record of these experiences as well as the dissemination of cultural knowledge among young people.
Challenges
The idea for the outreach project came from Patrick Cavalcante, a master’s student supervised by Teixeira and a philosophy major. The team also included PhD student Ana Karla Farias, master’s student Rafael Reis, and media studies majors Henrique Melo, Flávia Santos, and Lucas Barros. All of them highlighted the mutual learning process involving the young students. “During the activities, we understood the importance of redefining our teaching methods to engage with the students and we made significant changes to the way we work in the classroom, with the help of the teachers of the elective film course,” said Cavalcante.
In addition to theoretical classes and the showing of film excerpts, the work was guided by practical activities, such as the creation of surrealist works of art, the composition of poems, the telling and invention of stories and the production of video letters, when a student recorded a message for a classmate. “This activity, in addition to working on the elaboration of a self Using the technological apparatus of the camera, it also contributed to the development of a healthy environment in the classroom, working on the socio-emotional side of the class”, explained the philosophy graduate.
The students reported that they initially found the project strange. “It started out very theoretical, so we thought it was a bit boring. Then it started to get fun. I discovered a lot of interesting things I didn’t know [about cinema]. I really enjoyed the final activity [the video letters]. We learned a lot and had fun too,” said Mariana Ribeiro Ferraz, 16.
Vitor Emanuel Souza Santos, also 16, said that, despite not having much interest in cinema, the “experience was a lot of fun and brought the two classes [of the first years A and B of high school] together. I also thought it was really cool to have a book talking about what we did.”
At Tuesday's event, each student received a copy of the book. "We really believe in this relationship between the university and the public school, which has generated this wonderful partnership with a physical result that will remain with the students and in our library," said Dhafinny da Silva, who was accompanied at the launch by Ariane Moreira, both teachers of the elective subject, and Maria da Conceição Martins Oliveira, principal of the state school.
Pedagogical turnaround
The production of the book is an offshoot of another extension project, this one arising from the limitations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic. With classes migrating to the online environment, Teixeira had to adopt new teaching strategies: in-person seminars were replaced by audiovisual pieces, combining artistic development and knowledge development. “This was a turning point in my teaching experience, it was wonderful because it moved [teaching] away from lectures and worked on this dispersive trait of young people, which is a major pedagogical problem today.”
The pieces produced by the students, in 2022, then resulted, with the support of the Student Support Service (SAE), in the production of the feature film From Lumière to Nostalgia for Light, the starting point for the book. Cavalcante still envisions a new project, the publication of History(s) of Cinema in e-book format, in order to expand its reach.
Watch the video about the extension project:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZvxUVIsOiJBFFQyukR7dIaFjrp1TKsA4/view
