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Lendo O Mundo
Brazil/US | 2025 | 70'
Directed by Catherine Murphy & Iris de Oliveira
Produced by Micaela Ovelar & Carina Aparecida
Edited by Iris de Oliveira, Renato Maia, Mara Wollong & Luis Dechtiar
Field producers: Silvana Pacheco & Gustavo Correia
Education does not change the world.
Education changes people. People change the world.
- Paulo Freire
In the early 1960s, Paulo Freire led an experimental adult education project in Northeastern Brazil. This work enabled hundreds of rural men & women to read, write, and begin to vote. But political upheaval at the time led to Freire’s arrest and years of exile, during which time he became an icon of advancing democracy through global education.
Original Title: Lendo o Mundo
English Title: Reading the World
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 70 minutes
Production Countries: Brazil & US
Worldwide rights available.
Distribution contact: Erika Hoffgen
In 1963, Paulo Freire led a small group of educators across Northeastern Brazil in experimental “Culture Circles,” teaching 300 adult farmers to read and write in forty hours. Their innovative method used critical and creative thinking instead of memorization and repetition. By contextualizing and personalizing the lessons, educators used their surroundings to teach vocabulary and construct meaning. Illiterate people were not allowed to vote, and Freire’s project opened the door for them to get ID cards for the first time and participate in the fervor blossoming democracy taking place in Brazil at that time. A coup d’etat in 1964 overthrew the president, shut down the program and setting fire to the farmers’ notebooks. Freire was forced into exile for 16 years, spreading this pedagogy around the globe and impacting education until today.
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Directed by: Catherine Murphy, Iris de Oliveira
Producers: Micaela Ovelar, Carina Aparecida
Co-producer: Rachel Dickson
Scriptwriters & Editors: Iris de Oliveira, Renato Maia, Mara Wollong, Luis Dechtiar
Field producers: Silvana Pacheco, Gustavo Correia
Executive producers: Petra Costa, Kit Miller, T.M. Scruggs
Associate producers: Talaya Grimes, Miranda Montenegro
Consulting producers: Maria Luisa Mendonça, Denise Zmekhol
Cinematography: Carina Aparecida, Cristiano Burlan, Ulisses Brandão, Oto Cartaxo, Caio Castor, Renato Maia, Passos Jr
Sound: Felipe Mago Andrade, Valney Damacena, Alban Henriquez
Archival Producers: Stephanie Temoteo, Micaela Ovelar
Impact Producer: Erika Hoffgen - Vivá Projetos
Archival Footage: Bela Films, SESC, VIU Cine, UFERSA, Repórter Brasil, Mapa Filmes, Caliban Produções Cinematográficas,
Cinemateca Brasileira, Arquivo Nacional, Acervo IOCFB
Music: Chico Cesar, Bia Ferreira, Cláudio Rabeca, Quinteto de Paraiba
Partners: Casa de Cultura Popular de Angicos, UFRN, LAHMED, UFERSA Angicos, UFERSA Mossoró, Viu Cine
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Website designed by Lucía Amieva-Wang
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