Carandiru

Following up on the stylish, hard-hitting CITY OF GOD comes CARANDHIRU, another great film from Brazil. It's a ground-breaking portrayal of the largest penitentiary in Latin America, the Sao Paulo House of Detention; 7,800 men serve time here in a structure originally intended to house a maximum of 3,000. The story is loosely adapted from the book Estacao Carandiru ("Carandiru Station"), a big best-seller in Brazil. The book and film recount the experience of a doctor working in the prison infirmary. Visits with ailing prisoners became windows onto the everyday life of the criminal underworld. CARANDHIRU "moves forward on the sheer strength of its portraiture, thanks to an exceptionally good ensemble cast that brings the inmates to life as individuals, not genre types." (Deborah Young, Variety.) "Hector Babenco, long absent from world cinema because of illness, makes a triumphant re-entry with CARANDHIRU." (Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter.)