Documentaries Bridge the Knowledge Gap About the Amazon for University Students

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Forced labor, land conflicts, and conservation were among the subjects tackled in the course “Amazonia, Amazonias - Stories Told” - a partnership between the Pulitzer Center and the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF).

Almost 1,700 miles separate Rio de Janeiro from the limits of the Amazon rainforest, whose inhabitants are rarely on national news. But for five months, up to January 2025, 43 Geography, Environmental Science, Social Sciences, Cinema and International Relations undergraduates were immersed through film in those peoples' social and environmental struggles.

The initiative, developed by the Pulitzer Center Education with UFF’s Geography Department, used documentaries and personal testimonies to give students an overview of the social and environmental struggles of the Amazon.

“Cinema proved to be an effective learning tool,” said Environmental Science student Helena Rodrigues do Bomfim. “But what truly made an impact was hearing the stories directly from people living in the Amazon.”

The course featured 15 sessions, 12 of which combined film screenings with talks by a roster of 11 guest speakers—researchers, filmmakers, activists, and journalists with firsthand experience in the region. 

“Using cinema as a tool for classes was very productive. And having speakers in person, with the chance to exchange ideas with people who live in the various states of the Amazon region, gave us an experience that we don’t have here,” said Helena Rodrigues do Bomfim, who is in the eighth-semester of Environmental Science degree.

The course, coordinated by UFF’s Geography Department, was developed to present different perspectives on the various realities of the Amazon based on important audiovisual productions that highlight stories and situations that are often overlooked, yet are crucial for fostering critical thinking regarding the challenges posed by socio-environmental and territorial issues.

“We are trying to establish integrated networks of knowledge regarding the Amazon to help create and nurture quality information about the region, through educational initiatives. This is a way of contributing to the forest’s conservation and guaranteeing the rights of its peoples by identifying and reflecting on the main challenges,” explained Maria Rosa Darrigo, Pulitzer Center’s Education program manager.

Some of the productions shown during the course, such as the mini-documentaries Life in an Extractive Reserve in the Amazon Rainforest, by the journalists Nádia Pontes and Bruno Kelly; The Pandemic and Fake News in the Upper Xingu, by Fábio Zuker and Thomaz Pedro; and Women of the Forest, produced by TV Cultura, had support of the Pulitzer Center for their production.

“The partnership with Pulitzer played an essential part both in facilitating access to films and documentaries as well as in setting up the structure of the course and bringing people from the Amazon region. Undoubtedly, the students will carry this experience with them for the rest of their lives,” says Raquel Giffoni, a professor in the Department of Geoenvironmental Analysis, who joined the geographer and professor Luiz Jardim Wanderley to teach the classes.

For Wanderley, the methodology – integrating film, analyzing reports and lectures – was the factor that made the difference. “The students pointed to the methodology as an interesting way of bringing contemporary themes and new perspectives about the Amazon. Many of them were not even familiar with cases from recent times, such as the Carajás and Serra Pelada massacres. Those of us who have been following social issues in Brazil for a few years think that everybody knows about these facts. But, that is not the case,” adds the professor, who coordinated the report “O Cerco do Ouro.” Published in 2021, together with researcher Luísa Molina, the document analyzes the increase in illegal mining on the Munduruku Indigenous Land (read more).

The so-called Carajás massacre was the subject of one of the classes – “Conflicts with the Peoples of the Amazon Forest and Countryside”. On April 17, 1996, 21 rural workers were killed and another 69 people were injured in a police operation during a protest against the government’s delay in expropriating a farm in the municipality of Eldorado do Carajás, in the State of Pará.

The case of Serra Pelada, in the municipality of Curionópolis, also in Pará, which in the 1980s became the largest open-pit gold mine in the world, attracting thousands of people, was covered during the class “Gold in the Forest: past and present.”

The topics also included gender issues – discussing the resistance of women in the Amazon region and the violence against their bodies and territories – and the role of journalism in the region, discussing the threats to professionals and activists, in addition to the way in which digital tools have been one of the strategies for complaints and resistance by the Amazonian peoples.

“For me, one of the most interesting lectures was the one about independent journalism in the Amazon region, showing the reality there. I began to realize how we consume a great deal of information that is focused just on one side, when there are other stories to be told,” explains Bomfim. 

The student said that the course has already produced results: Inspired by the documentary “Reports from a Correspondent about the War in the Amazon region,” she adapted the theme of her course conclusion project to analyze collective action in the shanty towns. Her aim is to study independent newspapers in those communities.

The film, directed by the journalists Daniel Camargos and Ana Aranha, from Repórter Brasil, was supported by the Pulitzer Center through the Rainforest Journalism Fund and involves an in-depth examination of the challenges faced by journalists who cover violence against Indigenous communities based on the story of the murder of Dom Phillips and the Indigenist Bruno Pereira in an ambush in the Javari Valley, in the State of Amazonas (find out more).

“At certain points, the films were heavy and sad, but the art, the speakers and the interaction between the students made the learning process really meaningful. It was a pleasure to go to class. It will be unforgettable, both for me and for the students,” concludes Giffoni, remembering that the course title was a way of honoring the geographer Carlos Walter Porto Gonçalves, who died in September 2023.

A professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Gonçalves was an important reference in debates about the fight against oppression and exploitation, having received awards for his intellectual output in connection with the environment, agrarian reform and traditional communities, particularly riverside communities and rubber tappers. In 2001, he wrote the book Amazônia, Amazônias (in free translation: “The Amazon Region, Different Amazon Realities”).

Giffoni’s and Wanderley intend to open similar courses in the future.