Carandiru.doc
[documentary 52']

Carandiru, as the largest detention centre in Latin America is known, was completely shut down by February 2003. The history of this infamous brutal penitentiary includes a bloody massacre in 1992 conducted by the military police during an insurgency when over 120 inmates died in a few hours.

The dismantling of Carandiru involved the transference of nearly 8,000 prisoners in a secret military operation to jails throughout the São Paulo state. After its seven pavilions have been completely emptied, the buildings were imploded.

Meanwhile, Hector Babenco, the well-known director of Pixote and Kiss of the Spider Woman, produced his film Carandiru, based on the bestseller by Dr. Dráuzio Varella, within the walls of Carandiru, during its evacuation.

The research for the book and the film involved interviews with prisoners and ex-convicts and extensive observations about the everyday life at the penitentiary, where Dr Varella carried out important and revolutionary AIDS medical prevention work.

During the shooting of the film Carandiru, we discovered that many extras involved in the scenes were former inmates or real relatives of inmates. They accompanied the shooting at crucial moments. In this way, during several scenes of great conflict, or those which were dramatically fundamental to the film's narrative, we were able to witness the real viewpoint of the fictional reconstruction of reality.

Carandiru.doc investigates the relations between reality and fiction through the point of view of the participants of both the film and the massacre, and focuses on the process of the last days of the prison and reflects on the real events and the fictional feature film.