The first fiction feature by director and researcher José Filipe Costa, Our Father – The Last Days of a Dictator, will be premiered in Portugal at the Indie Lisboa festival, as part of the National Competition section.

As we previously reported, the film reinterprets the last weeks of António de Oliveira Salazar’s life (1889-1970) based on real events. As Carlos Ramos says on the festival’s website, it ‘rescues a little-known episode, absent from school textbooks, which ends up reflecting—perhaps unintentionally—the frightening echoes of that past in the present: the illusion of order, the cult of the traditional family, fear, and authoritarianism that, then as now, insinuate themselves into everyday discourse and gestures’. Luís Trindade and Rita Luís collaborated as scientific consultants on the film.

The national premiere is scheduled for 4 May at 6pm at Culturgest. There will be a second screening on 9 May at 10.45am at São Jorge Cinema. José Filipe Costa will be present at both.

Picture: A shot from the film