Resumo

Nowadays in several intellectual productions of the academic world in the fields of humanities, documentary film is an integral and simultaneous part of the processes and results of scientific research. Given the irreversibility of this fact, it is clear that dilemmas about its relevance still appear questioning its legitimacy as a tool, in itself, of knowledge. In this sense, from the testimony and reflection of five university professors who develop their research concomitantly with the imagery production in five different countries - Brazil, Cuba, the United States, England and Switzerland - this paper intends to debate how they present and articulate themselves: the presence of documentary cinema at university, its place as a producer and problematizer of knowledge, its support as a dialogical resource and its relevance as a sociological data in a world increasingly marked by the image as a vehicle of cultural practices.