Juízo

* FIPRESCI Award DOK Leipzig 2007, Germany * Best Film award One World Int'l Human Rights 2008 JUIZO (BEHAVE) follows the process of minors (less than 18) who have fallen into the hands of the Brazilian legal system. Boys and girls from underprivileged backgrounds faced with crime, ruling, and sentences handed down for theft, drug trafficking, and even murder. Due to legal constraints about revealing the true identity of the minors charged, the accused adolescents were substituted with young people chosen for having themselves lived in similar social conditions, although innocent of any actual crime. All the other characters in JUIZO – judges, prosecutors, public defenders, correctional agents, family members – are the real people filmed during the hearings in the Juvenile Court in Rio de Janeiro and visits to the Padre Severino Institute, the correctional facility where the law-breaking minors are sent to. JUIZO walks the same dead-end corridors and encounters the sheer volume of cases within the system seen in JUSTICA (JUSTICE), Maria Ramos’ previous prize-winning film. The film shows the process of judging and how easily we are swayed over questions involving minors breaking the law.