Carandiru

Directed by	Hector Babenco
Produced by	Hector Babenco Oscar Kramer
Written by	Hector Babenco Fernando Bonassi Victor Navas Story: Dráuzio Varella
Starring	Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos
Music by	André Abujamra
Cinematography	Walter Carvalho
Editing by	Mauro Alice
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics Globo Filmes
Release date(s)	Brazil: March 21, 2003 United States: January 16, 2003 Argentina: March 18, 2004
Running time	147 minutes
Country	Brazil Argentina
Language	Portuguese

This episodic story is set in São Paulo's notorious jail known as Carandiru, one of Latin America's largest and most violent prison systems.

The doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) is an oncologist who arrives in the jail as a volunteer to test the prisoners for HIV infection.

Seeing the disease, overcrowding, and rampant circulation of drugs, the doctor realizes much of the prison is controlled by the inmates. They decorate their cells and have an established pecking order. The strong inhabit messy individual suites, and the weak are jammed together, as many as sixteen sharing a 100-square-foot (9.3 m²) cell.

Several narratives develop in the film: the attempted murder of Peixeira (Milhem Cortaz), the solitary confinement of Chico (Milton Gonçalves), and the romance between Lady Di (Rodrigo Santoro) and No Way (Gero Camilo).

The doctor establishes a routine and comes to see the prisoners as survivors.

The picture ends with a violent prison riot that historically took place on October 2, 1992. The repression of the riot became known as the Carandiru Massacre 

.