Cinema, Human Rights And Development: The Cinema As A Pedagogical Practice

Abstract

This article seeks to rethink the importance of the cinema as a teaching and learning methodology of Law. Much is said about the importance of different methodologies to the teaching and learning of Law, such as cinema, music and literature. But there is not much said about why it is important. In this sense, the question to be solved is: why cinema can be used as an important pedagogical practice to teach human rights? To answer the question, the main hypothesis, to be tested by Popperian method, suggests that cinema manages to generate an emotional participation of the spectator, including the student. This hypothesis is explained by the theory of projection-identification, which says cinema can eliminate the distance created in the students by the scientific objectification. Moreover, human rights films seem to present a load of truth, increasing the emotional participation of the students; therefore, it seems to increase the will of the student to learn new subjects and get involved in human rights issues.