Marcela Jesus

When numerous schools in São Paulo were slated to be closed in 2015 as a result of the worsening socio-political crisis, students occupied more than a thousand public buildings in an unprecedented act of self-empowerment. Filmmaker Eliza Capai shows the development of the many-voiced protests, using news excerpts, self-conducted interviews and recordings made with activists’ own cell phone cameras. From the first demonstrations in 2013 and continuing all the way to the election of the extreme right-wing presidential Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, Capai’s highly political work becomes more and more relevant with each passing day.

In the richest state and one of the most conservative in Brazil, the modus operandi of public education suffers a setback when high school students react to the official decree that determines the closing of 94 schools and the relocation of students. The student response is surprising.