Cinema and human rights in Carandirú. What about human life in Peru’s overcrowded prisons?

Avellaneda-Vásquez J.; Pérez-Sánchez T.L. · Nuevo Derecho (2025) · DOI: 10.25057/2500672x.1706

Resumen

The objective of this article was to identify the contributions of cinema to the reflection on human rights by analyzing how Carandirú (2003) could contribute to understanding human life in prison, in a scenario of prison overcrowding, as seen in the Peruvian case. A qualitative methodology was adopted, with a case study design based on documentary and audiovisual content analysis. The findings supported a concrete discourse on human rights through cinema, in which the images projected on the screen seek to provoke empathy with the victims, as well as the ability to travel from fiction to reality and detect what needs to be corrected. This discourse confirmed that the structural, systematic, and widespread violations of the human rights of persons deprived of liberty, as depicted in the film, correspond to the reality of Peruvian prisons, which, conditioned by overcrowding, create an inhospitable environment for human life. It was concluded that prison in Peru is not, and has never been, a place for the law; and that, therefore, the human lives that decay there are disposable and expendable.

Instituciones: Universidad Científica del Sur; Universidad Católica Sedes Sapientiae