'STOP! YOU AREN'T MEANT TO KILL THEM!': In 1992, police went berserk in Brazil's notorious Carandiru jail, killing 111 inmates. Now the story of the massacre has been turned into a film

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Wilcken, Patrick
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 31.10.2003
• ISSN: 0261-3077

The prison massacre ends the Argentine-born director Hector Babenco's new film Carandiru. Babenco is no stranger to prison drama - his best-known film, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, an adaptation of Manuel Puig's novel starring John Hurt, was set behind bars; Pixote also begins with the travails of a young boy in a juvenile detention centre in Sao Paulo. Babenco himself admits to the dramatic possibilities of closed communities - a prison being, in a very Brazilian metaphor, like "a lift stuck between two floors at the weekend". In 1987, Varella had embarked on an ambitious project. He had decided to research the incidence of HIV infection inside Carandiru - a confined, unsanitary environment where anal sex and intravenous drug use were rife. But his investigations would develop into something much more than a dry, epidemiological study. Varella became engrossed in Carandiru, the set-up, the inmates and their lives, and ended up volunteering his services each Monday for over a decade. And by telephone or at his bedside, he began telling Babenco of his experiences inside one of Latin America's largest prisons. For Babenco, Varella became "a kind of alter ego", someone who was doing something creative and vital, at a time when the director could do nothing at all. He encouraged his doctor to set down his experiences in book form. The outcome, Estacao Carandiru (Carandiru Station), is now a surprise bestseller in Brazil, having sold over 400,000 copies, and was recently adapted into a BBC radio play.