This work describes an investigation into youth and politics in the contemporary context of Brazil, taking the popular education as the center of its action. The expansion of so-called pre-university community courses in Rio de Janeiro, from the 90s, has represented an important vector of tensioning of our educational system (SANTOS, 2005), as well as a new field of research for the human sciences. Originated within social struggles and movements, these courses have expanded the entry possibilities and the political action of the young working class in universities. Starting from an understanding of human subjectivity as an effect of collective assemblages of enunciation (GUATARRI & ROLNIK, 1980), proves to be interesting to consider the forms of subjectivity produced in these courses and their consequences in everyday practices. The construction process of political subjectivity (CASTRO, 2008a, P. 254) in these spaces, involve the engagement of young people that lead them to take collective actions, affecting directly the ways they experience the academic space. The method of carthografy and the discussions on the role of image in the contemporary (JOBIM E SOUZA, 2011; GODINHO, 2011) are the main references for our methodology. The carthografy guided us through the different experiences in the field of pre-university community courses, until the definition of Associação Mangueira Vestibulares as our research field. The considerations about the importance of images in contemporary life motivated the creation of an audiovisual narrative about the political dimension of this social movement, building a documentary with the people surveyed in the intention to broaden the debate beyond the boundaries of academy.