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The story is loosely adapted from the book “Estacao Carandiru” (Carandiru Station) by Dr. Drauzio Varella, which sold more than 300,000 copies in the first 60 weeks and an average of sales of 7,000 copies each month thereafter.

The film recounts the experience of a doctor working at the House of Detention (where 7,800 men serve time in a location originally intended to house a maximum of 3,000). The doctor first came to the prison in the late 1980s, to implement an AIDS prevention project. Upon observing the prisoners’ deplorable state of health, he was moved to volunteer his services on a weekly basis. As his efforts began to bear results, he gradually earned the respect of the prison community. Respect led to the sharing of confidences. Visits with ailing prisoners became the context for sharing of lively and touching personal stories. In our film, encounters in the infirmary become a window onto the everyday life of the criminal underworld.

We come to know the rapist Gilson, tried and sentenced by the Law Behind Bars; Zico and Deusdete, inseparable half brothers who, in jail, become each other’s assassins; Highness and his shrewd balancing act between women and heists; Old Chico, a Zen master in the ways of the dungeon, at last on the brink of his long-awaited freedom; Warden Pires, who oversees the prison with the perspicacity of a tightrope walker; Ebony, the true leader of the inmate community and the arbiter of all its contentions; the religious conversion of the assasin, Dagger, the rise and fall of the surfer Ezequiel; Antonio Carlos, Claudiomiro and, coming between them like a knife, and depraved Dina; the existentialist philosopher No Way and his love affair with the divine lady Di. The narrative of the film is crafted like a puzzle with one story giving way to another for of surrealist, uniquely Brazilian collage of tragedy.

These narratives, set both inside and outside the prison, culminate in the infamous October 1992 Pavillion 9 massacre, in which 111 unarmed inmates were killed. The episode rendered in the words of our characters, who emerge at the end of the film as its survivors. “Carandiru” is not the story of the massacre, but about those who somehow lived to recount it.

One of the fundamental aims of this project is to open the gates of the largest prison in Latin America to the eyes of the general public, through the life stories of the men who make their home within its walls. -- © 2002 Sony Pictures Classics

PRODUCTION NOTES

The production of Carandiru took a total of three years, from final script to first print and release. The technical team included more than 250 professionals.

Hector Babenco wrote nine versions of the script together with Victor Navas and Fernando Bonassi.

The cast has 26 leading actors, 120 supporting actors, and eight thousand extras. Three months of arduous rehearsals prepared the 146 actors for their performance in the film.

The actors' tattoos are a result of the meticulous work of make-up professional Gabi Moraes and her team. More than 700 different designs of tattoos grace the bodies of the leading and supporting actors, as well as the extras.

Three scenes in particular mobilized hundreds of actors and extras. One, of a visitor's day at Carandiru, called for more than 300 extras (men, women, teenagers and children). The same number was used for the soccer match played in the prison courtyard. For the Carandiru Massacre sequence, more than one thousand people were needed, apart from six horses, six dogs, heavy weapons and many gallons of fake blood.

The film features more than 40 location sites, all in and around greater metropolitan São Paulo. The Carandiru scenes were filmed in three different locations: the hippodrome jail, Carandiru Prison itself, and in the studio.

The scene construction at the Vera Cruz Studio required 12 weeks of hard labor and a team of more than 150 people, as well as the support of the Government of the State of São Paulo, through TV Cultura's Nova Vera Cruz Project, and the support of the municipal government of the town of São Bernardo do Campo.

Carandiru consumed six hundred cans of film, the equivalent of 45 miles of images. Two 35mm cameras were used. Some of the more complex scenes required the use of five cameras.

The editing of the film consumed eight months of work, with four more months of sound editing. The mixing was done in New York in five weeks.