- Young Brazilians make history in this radical document. Initially they are fighting for education, then their subversive actions take on a new dimension.
- When Brazil's economic and social crisis deepened in the last decade, students protested and occupied hundreds of schools, demanding better public education and the end of austerity measures. The feature documentary "Your Turn" depicts the Brazilian student movement from the protests of 2013 until the election of the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, in 2018. Inspired by the collective voice of the movement itself, the documentary is narrated by three high school students, who represent central points of their struggle. The narrators' jostling for space and time exposes the movement's conflicts and demonstrates its complexity.
"Occupying is resisting" has been the student slogan since 2015, when São Paulo's secondary-school students occupied more than 200 schools. Since then, occupying public buildings has been students' main means to call attention to urgent issues, force discussion in the media and in society, and fight all over Brazil. While the student struggle stood out, a crisis arose in Brazil's politics, economy, and culture. The fall of President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's return to the UN Hunger Map, the rise of inflation and unemployment, and corruption accusations against the major figures in the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government have led to a lack of hope.
In this setting, the student movement has blossomed as one of the largest, if not the largest, forces of renewal, a ray of light for the progressive strains of Brazilian society. The documentary feature film #OpenLetter uses archival material from some of the main filmmakers who followed the occupations, material from the main Brazilian TV-news network, and unpublished material shot by the director over the course of fifteen months.
Inspired by the collectivist language of the movement itself, the doc will follow three students' narratives. Each one represents central points of the fight: African-Brazilian feminism and the fight for representation, the defense of students organization in unions versus anarchism.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content