48

What can a portrait tell us about the police system? What can a photograph taken 35 years ago reveal about a dictatorship that is now finished? What can it say about contemporary society? How can photographs kindle the memories of their protagonists? 48 is a portraiture of the 48-year dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, the longest dictatorial government in twentieth-century Europe, through the stories of some of the victims and photographs from police records. Women and men, young and old, peasants, workers, and bourgeois… a multi-voiced tale of the opposition to the dictator and an accurate yet compassionate description of repressive techniques. The documentary value of photographs and the releasing capacity of memory stories brought together in perfect harmony.

Susana de Sousa Dias. Filmmaker and university teacher, lecturing at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon. She’s a PhD researcher in Aesthetics and Art Sciences and Technologies (University of Paris 8 and University of Lisbon).In 2001, she founded the production company, Kintop. Her film Natureza Morta-Visages d'une Dictature (Still Life) (Atalanta Films Award, DocLisboa 2005 e Merit Prize, Taiwan IDF 2006,) has been shown in festivals and screenings in five continents. 48, her last film, internationally acclaimed for its originality, was awarded and presented in more than 20 festivals. Obscure Light (documentary) and Stillleben (installation on three screens - Temps d'Images Festival) are the works she is presently working on.