Paper short abstract:

This paper presents reflections on the documentary "Behind the line of shields", featuring Brazilian police. Through the limits encountered in conversations with policemen, I investigate the possibilities of documentary cinema to contribute to the formation of what I call an agonistic community.

Paper long abstract:

The paper presents reflections on Brazilian police looking at the documentary "Behind the line of shields". Filmed in 2017 and presented soon after as a test version, the film is still being edited. The making of this documentary proved to be a delicate exercise, dealing with a configuration of antagonistic otherness and finding out how to position oneself against it, while recognizing the political and social urgency of the project.

Because the police is militarized (a legacy of the former Brazilian authoritarian regimes), they follow a rigid doctrine and are subject to a hierarchy where they seem unable to express their own opinions. How can one talk to people like this? How to disagree with them? And how to do this while trying to recognize the social-political conditions in which they are inscribed as subjects?

Through the limits encountered in these conversations, the paper questions the possibilities of documentary cinema to contribute to the formation of what is called an agonistic community - a community where people can question each other and disagree - a political gesture presupposed by democracy. But is the possibility of an agonistic community compatible with a militarized institution, a space where otherness appears as an enemy to be fought and eliminated?

The reflections are guided by Chantal Mouffe's approach to politics, as well as by the contributions of filmmakers Avi Mograbi and Rithy Pahn, on filming subjects in situations of antagonism.