Carandiru

Carandiru (2003) is a Brazilian and Argentine film directed by Hector Babenco. The picture is based on the book Estação Carandiru (English: Carandiru Station) by Dr. Drauzio Varella, a physician and AIDS specialist.
Carandiru tells some of the stories that occurred in Carandiru Penitentiary, which was the biggest prison in Latin America. The histories culminate with the 1992 massacre where 111 prisoners died, 102 killed by police. In 2002, one year before the release of the film, the Carandiru Penitentiary was closed.
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 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.
The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 19, 2003.