Cabeça de Nêgo

A Bruddah's Mind, as it is known in English ,is an intriguing look,for American viewers (I saw it at the 2022 North Carolina Latin American Film Festival ) at wayward high school youth that only superficially resembles such stories we are used to seeing here,of juvenile delinquents acting up in class and staging a rebellion against a stifling educational system.

The political context here is instead a bureaucratic Brazilian system where the students (mostly dark skinned ) are mistreated and oppressed by mostly white teachers and administrators. The cause for the rebellion specifically is a student activist who is blamed by his teacher and by the principal ,when it is actually him who's being picked on by other students.

The situation escalates after the victim refuses to leave the premises and the others now rally to his defense.

Much is made ,also interesting for an American viewers ,of the inspiration of the Black Panthers of the 1960s ,whom the student reads about in a book loaned him by one of the few sympathetic and understanding teachers ,a woman.

For first time director Deo Cardoso this is a promising debut.