Edifício Master

The documentary of the above title was completed in 2002 by Eduardo Coutinho, a celebrated Brazilian documentarist. It shows the lives of 37 people who live in some of the 276 apartments of the building, each measuring 37 square metres. It's a really varied community with its own norms for living cheek by jowl, and it was even more varied then with the full gambit of human activity taking place on its many floors.

Sadly, this week, aged 80, Coutinho was stabbed to death at home by his son who is said to be schizophrenic and was at the time not under medication. So, a tragedy all round. Several of the people featured in the film went to the funeral yesterday, and as I read a piece about it in the local paper while out for coffee, I realised I was only two minutes around the block from the building itself, and that Dd and I had once looked at a flat in it for ourselves. So, I went along for today's blip.

The whole documentary is here on YouTube; it can only be viewed on PCs, not smart phones etc.