Catalogue > At random

HU are the initials that commonly describe the Clementino Fraga Filho University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro: a mass of concrete of 220,000 sq. meters with the Pharaonic size military dictatorships used to plan things with, and built amidst endless incidents throughout several decades. Both claimed and abandoned by different orbits of state administration, it splits inevitably in half. What?s that like, you ask? While half the Pi letter-shaped building managed to survive through budgetary and political ups-and-downs and became a quality medical center, another area was never used and ended up in ruins ?thanks to vandalism, floods, and the simple wearing of time. HU, the documentary, goes through very concrete walls in order to depict that amazing duality with interviews to experts (doctors, architects, politicians) and a horror film atmosphere when it goes over to the dark side. And it also allows to be interpreted ?especially its devastating final shot? as a tragic metaphor of a certain notion of public affairs, and of dreams that are too big ?and of so many other things.

Pedro Urano is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he studied Filmmaking. He has an extended career as a cinematographer in films like Diário de Sintra (Paula Gaitán, Bafici ?08). He directed several shorts, as well as the documentary feature Estrada Real da Cachaça (2008). Born in Denver, US, in 1978, she studied Social Communication and Visual Languages at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. A member of the art group Grupo PY, she participated with her photography work ?including the series ?Serie HU?, which originated this project? in both collective and individual exhibits.