Young children from Manguinhos on stage

And their speech about colonialism through the experience with the short film Meu nome é Maalum

Abstract

The first steps of this text take place when a seven-year-old child is placed in a conversation circle: “If the world had no name, we would have to invent them”. The purpose of this work seeks to understand how  young children (crianças-crias), students in the 2nd year of elementary school at a public school in Manguinhos, a favela complex in Rio de Janeiro, elaborate their conceptions between being a child, cinema at school and colonialism from the short film My name is Maalum (2022). Crianças-cria are children living in Rio de Janeiro communities who follow a repertoire of cultural practices typical of favelas (Rosa, 2019). Based on the story of Maalum, I present, through conversations, the concept of colonialism, respecting the vocabulary, the capacity for interpretation and the curricular order of the respective academic year. Children's speech is the bond that intertwines this research, and in line with this, I begin to trace the relationships between childhood and colonialism (Liebel, 2019; Lopez, 2008) and the ways in which children today (Noguera, 2019) instigate us to break with your old ties (Kilomba, 2019; Fanon, 2008). Secondly, I reflect on their impressions about the black film narrative of My name is Maalum (Hooks, 2023) and perceptions about racial relations (Bento, 2012) and colonization (Césaire, 1978). Thus, through reports, speeches and comments from children, I present their first impressions about colonialism and some productions resulting from this immersion in this abstract concept, but so significant for childhood. Getting to know Maalum through his audiovisual narrative was an experience that introduced new concepts to the children, led them to reflect on their own life stories, and also provided them with an immersion into their African ancestry through the images and sounds of the short film in question.