48

The number 48 in the title of this unusual documentary stands for the period 1926–1974, the 48 years during which Portugal was a fascist dictatorship. It consists of official photographs taken by the PIDE secret police, that is, images produced by the repressive regime, which show the faces of political prisoners head on and in profile. The opponents of the regime seen in the images are heard in voiceover speaking today about imprisonment, humiliation and torture. Editing together archive images and witness testimonies from Portugal and Mozambique, this minimalist concept reveals the mechanisms of the authoritarian system. A contribution to collective memory emerges, an archive against forgetting and repressing. (bik)