“It’s an anti-asylum argument,” says director of “Brazilian Holocaust” film

The film “Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive ” hits theaters this Thursday (11). Despite being a fictional work, the film portrays the tragedy that occurred in Barbacena Psychiatric Hospital known as Cologne in Minas Gerais.

“The film, by simply showing how [a situação era]is alone an argument for the anti-asylum struggle”, says the director André Ristum The CNN . “It’s a story with very strong content, right? From a documentary point of view, there were already things, like Daniela’s own documentary [Arbex]so there was already a lot of stuff. From a fictional point of view, there was nothing. So, since I already have a historical background in fiction cinema rather than documentary cinema, I ended up opting for that path.”

“Ninguém Sai Vivo Daqui” is based on the book by journalist Daniela Arbex, released in 2013, which portrays information about more than 60 thousand dead inside the “largest hospice in Brazil.”The center received daily, in addition to patients diagnosed with mental illness, homosexuals, prostitutes, epileptics, single mothers, troubled girls, women impregnated by their bosses, girls who had lost their virginity before marriage, beggars, alcoholics, melancholics, shy people and all kinds of people considered outside of social standards”, describes the book’s synopsis.

The work was elected the best in the book-reportage style by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics and came second in the same category for the Jabuti Award in 2014.

This year, the documentary “Brazilian Holocaust” arrived on Netflix. Originally released in 2016, the film details the routine of people who were admitted to the asylum, also based on Arbex’s book.

“When I came across this story, with all these lives that had been subjected to this violence, what caught my attention the most was the story of how more than 70% of the people who were admitted to these institutions did not have any kind of diagnosis,” the director continues. “This caught my attention the most because medicine and psychiatry at the time understood that locking people up and mistreating them was not torture. This really caught my attention: the excluded and unwanted people of society were sent there without any kind of diagnosis, without any medical certificate, and sometimes interned for the rest of their lives.”

The film tells the story of Elisa, played by Fernanda Marques, who is sent to the Barbacena Psychiatric Hospital after becoming pregnant by her boyfriend. Although Elisa is a fictional character, the reality she experienced was true for many women during the 1970s.

“It has always been one of the projects I have enjoyed doing the most, it is the one I am most proud of, because I really like talking about themes that make changes in the world”, Fernanda Marques tells CNN . “Although the story was very heavy, the set was very full of love. We have to give our most painful feelings and put it into action.”

“We had a delicate preparation, a very intense preparation,” he continues. “We lived in this place, ate, slept, worked a lot… so I think all of this contributed to the process being much lighter than all this violence.” [que o filme mostra]”, he concludes.

In addition to Marques, the cast also includes names such as Andreia Horta , Augusto Madeira , Rejane Faria It is Naruna Costa .

When portraying the routine of patients who suffered at the Barbacena Psychiatric Hospital, André Ristum made the decision to make the film completely in black and white to enhance the stories told.

“Black and white plays a narrative role in this film,” explains the director. “When I was thinking about the film, I only saw images in black and white, I could only see the story in black and white. The lives of these people locked up in this place had no color.”

Watch the trailer for “Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive”:

No One Gets Out of Here Alive – Official Trailer