Cinema and education #5 — How to bring a film into class with Pupilo Play
Fifth and final post in Pupilo’s Cinema and Education series. After talking about why to bring cinema to school, about Law 13.006, cinema as art and workshops, it is time for the practical guide: how to put together a screening with Pupilo Play.
Pupilo Play is a free platform of Brazilian cinema for education. It has more than 300 films in its catalog, each with a synopsis, trailer and credits, and many with teaching notes linked to Brazil’s national curriculum, the BNCC. Full films are cleared by the filmmakers themselves for classroom use, and their number keeps growing. Here is the step by step.
1. Create your educator account
The account is free and takes a few minutes. You can sign in with email and password or with your Google account. When you sign up, tell us which grades and subjects you teach: that is how your “My area” starts recommending films that fit your classes.
Students don’t need accounts. The teacher has the account; the class watches with you, in the classroom, on the school’s projector or TV.
2. Find the right film
The search accepts titles, themes, directors’ names and even the code of a BNCC skill (for example, EF15AR04). In the catalog you can filter by education level, school year, theme, films with a lesson plan, full films and accessibility features, such as subtitles or films without dialogue.
On the home page, the rows help you get started: “Watch now” (full films), “Made by children and young people”, “Indigenous peoples”, “Environment”, rows by school level and more.
3. Read the film page before class
Each film has a page with a synopsis, trailer, credits and information for teachers. When there is a lesson plan, you will find the BNCC skills with their official wording and activity suggestions, written by our team of educator-curators or by other teachers.
Two sections deserve special attention:
Age rating. Each film shows the official Brazilian age rating badge. It is worth remembering what it is: the Ministry of Justice’s practical guide explains that works are assessed along three lines, “sex and nudity”, “drugs” and “violence”, and that the rating is neither censorship nor a judgment of quality (BRASIL, 2021, p. 9). It indicates the age below which the content is not recommended. Pupilo Play’s Terms of Use remind teachers that it is up to them to decide whether a film suits their class, taking into account the rating shown for each film.
Points to watch in class. These are notes by our curators and by teachers about scenes or topics that call for preparation or conversation: a sensitive subject, a scene that may frighten younger children, a term that needs context. Read them before screening.
Watch it first. No film page can replace that. Researcher Monica Fantin, from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, suggests questions teachers can ask themselves when choosing a film for children: does it show gratuitous shocking scenes, or are they necessary to the story? What emotions does it provoke? What discomforts and conflicts, such as sadness or fear, does it bring, and how does it put them in context? (FANTIN, 2015, p. 182-183).
4. Save films and build sessions
Like a film? Click Save. In your area, saved films can be organized into folders that work as sessions: you put several films together, see the total running time and can watch them one after another. It is a simple way to plan the two monthly hours of Brazilian cinema required by Law 13.006: one month, one folder.
5. Get the room ready
Test sound and picture beforehand, ideally on the same equipment you will use in class. Darken the room as much as you can. Open the film already signed in to your account and go full screen. Remember that films cannot be downloaded or copied: they play straight from the platform, online.
6. Before, during and after
Before: introduce the title, who made it, where it comes from and when it was made. Avoid telling the story or giving away the “lesson”.
During: let the film happen. For a feature, agree beforehand on whether there will be a break.
After: make room for the class. Fantin argues that, besides watching, students should have a space to share impressions, discuss, critique and later write about what they saw (FANTIN, 2015, p. 180). A few questions that work at any age: which moment do you remember? What bothered you? If you were the director, what would you change? From there, the lesson plan on the film page helps you go deeper.
7. Give back to the platform
Did an activity work well? On each film page, teachers with an account can suggest BNCC skills and a lesson plan. Suggestions are reviewed by our curators and, once approved, appear on the film page with your name and your school’s. You can also suggest points to watch in class. That is how the collection becomes more useful for those who come after you.
What you can and cannot do
Full films are cleared for educational, non-profit use: watching, screening in class, at school activities and at free cultural events linked to teaching. You may not download them, record the screen, post the film on other platforms, charge admission or use it commercially. And when you screen a film, always credit the title and the director. The details are in the Terms of Use (in Portuguese).
A suggestion to get started
How about opening the year with films made by students? The Made by children and young people theme includes, for example, the shorts from the Terror na Creche workshop, made by children at a daycare center in Joaçaba (Santa Catarina), and Elisa and A Cadeia, made by teenagers in Campo Mourão (Paraná). Watching another class’s film often sparks the loveliest question of all: “what if we made one?”. For that one, the answer is in post #4.
Questions, ideas or problems: write to play@pupilo.tv.br.
In this series
- #1 Why cinema at school
- #2 Law 13.006, more than ten years on
- #3 Cinema as art at school
- #4 When the class makes the film: what we learned from our workshops
- #5 How to bring a film into class with Pupilo Play (this post)
References
- BRASIL. Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública. Secretaria Nacional de Justiça. Classificação indicativa: guia prático de audiovisual. 4th ed. Brasília, 2021.
- BRASIL. Lei nº 13.006, de 26 de junho de 2014. Available at: planalto.gov.br.
- FANTIN, Monica. Cinema e infância na escola: algumas questões sobre a escolha dos filmes para crianças. In: FRESQUET, Adriana (ed.). Cinema e educação: a Lei 13.006 – reflexões, perspectivas e propostas. Ouro Preto: Universo Produção, 2015.
- PUPILO PLAY. Termos de Uso. Version of October 21, 2026. Available at: pupilo.tv.br/termos-de-uso.
