The new documentary “A is for Angicos” by filmmaker Catherine Murphy was screened on Thursday, March 30, at the Smith Learning Theatre of Teachers College, Columbia University. “A is for Angicos” is a documentary about the work of educator and philosopher Paulo Freire on literacy. It tells the story of the first literacy campaign Freire organized during the 1960s in Angicos, a municipality located in the state of Rio Grande, in the Northeast of Brazil.
Since the documentary has not been released to the public yet, this screening was a unique opportunity for our community, organized to specially provide Master’s students enrolled in our International and Comparative Education (ICEd) programs with a creative platform to learn about Freire.
During their first year at Teachers College, ICEd graduates take a core class called International Comparative Education & Development Studies. Divided into two parts in the Fall and Spring semesters, students learn about a wide variety of theories relevant to the field of education. Professor Regina Cortina and Professor Mary Mendenhall have been teaching the second part of the course this Spring 2023.
Critical pedagogy and liberation theory are among the theories examined in this class. Students read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), which is one of the foundational books in critical pedagogy. Reading this masterpiece and simultaneously watching a documentary about his literary campaign in Brazil was a wonderful chance for those taking the core class to engage with theoretical and practical material.
The documentary depicts a clear example of the application of critical pedagogy in literacy education.
“A is for Angicos” includes personal interviews with Brazilians who learn to read and write during the campaign. United States Filmmaker Catherine Murphy created this documentary to explore the earlier work of Paulo Freire preceding Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) and Education: The Practice of Freedom (Freire, 1976).
Marcella Winter, Doctoral Candidate in ICEd at Teachers College whose research focuses on Paulo Freire and critical pedagogy led a discussion after the screening. Attendees were able to discuss through open dialogue their insights about the documentary and ask more questions about Freire’s work.
Special thanks to the director of “A is for Angicos”—Catherine Murphy, the Department of International and Transcultural Studies, Professor Regina Cortina, the International and Comparative Program, and the Smith Learning Theatre Team of the Digital Futures Institute for making this event possible.