(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Your Turn is Eliza Capai's third full-length documentary and is about the experiences of three young student activists in São Paulo. The film shows some of the backdrop to Brazil's political convulsions in recent times, and had its international premiere at this year's Berlinale.
Students Marcela Jesus, Nayara Souza and Lucas "Koka" Penteado were engaged in youth activism about six years ago. It was then 28 years since the end of the military dictatorship, and it was democracy in Brazil. Nevertheless, the country was partly ruled by corrupt, incompetent, left-wing or social-democratic parties, both regionally and nationally.
schools Form
The story begins when São Paulo's highly disliked governor and presidential candidate, Geraldo Alckmin of the Social Democratic Center Party PSDB, supports a proposal that is yet another slap in the face of the poor: a rationalization reform that causes 93 educational institutions to be shut down and 300 students to be relocated. (But revenge is served as best known cold: In the documentary's final scenes, it is sadly pointed out that unpopular Alckmin only got 000 percent of the vote in the presidential election against Jair Bolsonaro.)
Drittlei a failing public education system takes students
the matter in their own hands.
The increased public transport rates added further stones to the burden of an already stressed population in São Paulo. The city is Brazil's largest, with approximately 19 million people (including urban areas) who can use public transport. More than a third of these live in poverty. The new public transport rates led to a sharp increase in the expenses for young people in São Paulo's slums – the so-called favelas – which huser many of Brazil's poor.
"Poor families often have to choose between eating or paying the rent," says Marcela. They rely on affordable public transport to have access to activities, shops and a social life. The new collective rates therefore became the spark of activism among the students, and a mass movement arose almost overnight.
Resistance
Drittlei an already failing public education system where teachers often do not show up to teach crowded classrooms, students take the matter into their own hands: They start a series of school occupations and demonstrations to provide resistance.
Governments respond in a way that seems relatively harmless in today's Bolsonaro climate: Police forces are dispatched to force students out of schools. The police, on the other hand, do not always have the permits in order, but still resort to aggressive violence and tear gas attacks when the youth take to the streets to get attention about the fight case.
Young optimism
The energy, enthusiasm, idealism – and naivety of the young protagonists who tell their stories gives hope for the future in a country that two months before the film premiered its very first right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Your Turn draws a picture of young optimism while bringing to light the student movement's many martial arts – LGBT, anti-racism and anti-sexism. The fight cases are highlighted through interviews with several students, and the film also relies on the work of other documentary filmmakers – such as Caio Castor, Henrique Cartaxo (from Jornalista's Livres) and Tiago Tambelli.
The trio of young activists arguing among themselves are allowed to represent the majority of the young activists. But the film is as much about young women's empowerment and exploration of their own gender and complexion as about activism – many in the movement are dark-skinned with South American origins or have ancestors who were slaves.
Capai's approach results in a film that may require some prior knowledge or some information retrieval afterwards if one is to fully understand it. But it represents a new and encouraging view of a protest movement that deliberately steer clear of conventional support for established parties and institutionalized leadership.
Rebellion
Young people's experiences – organizing protests, living together, sharing tasks, challenging sexism, appreciating and loving oneself – seem as important as the outward motive for the uprising.
"The school doesn't teach us how to organize ourselves politically," says one of the young main characters and narrators.
“The school does not teach citizen participation. The school neither encourages debate nor teaches us how to ask questions and how we can transform society. And I don't think it's a coincidence. They tell us that student organization is not the way to go, it is even a crime. How many class hours are dedicated to the many revolts and revolutions in Brazil's history? Just imagine that we were taught pacifist resistance, black groups, revolutions, freedom, rebellion and the people's political struggle… ”says Marcela.
It is a freedom manifesto with hope for the future. A hope that today faces an even tougher opponent than the last 30 years with a corrupt, weathered political system that has expired. The students thought they had won a regional victory when the street demonstrations got the media's attention and the rationalization program was shelved. The students also received support from those affected by the demonstrations. But Bolsonaro is a resolute, and even deadly, opponent for the students.
“Jair Bolsonaro is the first right-wing president of Brazil's history. His pledge: To classify them as 'invading' rural and urban areas, like terrorists, '' the film's text states.
The Future
Marcela goes on a personal journey in the film and we see her evolve from a young woman who smooths out the natural curls with straightener, to a lively feminist with purple and short cut curly hair who says, "Fuck, what will the future be like? What will the struggle for existence look like? Are you going to have anxiety attacks, just like me? Do you want the freedom to be yourself? Do girls want to be respected? Do school books mention colored? Will resistance be turned down? "
She does not have to wait long for answers: In April this year, just days after the anniversary of the military coup that led to Brazil's last dictatorship, the Bolsonaro government announced its plans to revise the history curriculum at the country's schools. This includes new textbooks to give students a "correct understanding" of the dictatorship period, describing the government that took over after the coup as "a democratic regime of power".
Your Turn won the Amnesty International Film Prize for Human Rights as well as Berlin's "Independent Peace Film Prize". Brazil's student movement – and Eliza Capai's career as a documentary filmmaker – is worth following.
Translated by Siri Sollie
