This work is dedicated to the study of educational cinematography in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, between 1889 and 1937, highlighting the participation of the professor Jonathas Serrano in this particular process. Contributions from Education, Communication and History were used during the process of this research, which has as its main theoretical reference the concept of appropriation, taken from Michel de Certeau's work. From the methodological and theoretical point of view, the presented results suggest the emergency of a new study object in human and social sciences, that can be understood as the history of formulation and education practices that are the result of the interaction between education and communication. With this investigation, one could see that even in the 19th century in Brazil there were educational practices using technology of communication, taking place in the city of Rio de Janeiro since the first three decades of the 20th century as well as identify and describe the methodology of these practices in classroom, defining the concepts of educational cinematography, in the way it was formulated and used in the period of this study. The educational cinematography not only used films with pedagogical goals, but also used a variety of technologies and communication processes available in that time, includding the realization of products under the coordination of teachers and students from public schools.