Halfway through the film's first image, a sentence by the author interrupts the action to share its view on what we're seeing: “when I came across this photo I thought it was from another time… from slavery times?”, but there are other elements that contradict the assumption. The year is 1907, we're in Angola, and the image of black people in shackles persists. The film is an impressive scanning and a meditation upon a photographic archive which depicts the consequences of occupation (known back then as “peace campaigns”) carried out by the Portuguese army over the Cuamato people in the south of Angola, following the 1885 Berlin Conference resolution on the partition of Africa. Based on an archive survey, this is a invaluable portrait of a people's bravery and resistance before their fall. Although the film only uses photos, its gloomy music enhances the feeling of wonderment generated by the images, and the text helps putting into context what we are watching. However, what is truly moving and extraordinary is the way the camera moves to reveal the details, the faces and their expressions, and different stories within the same image/shot, thus creating an unforgettable narrative. This is renowned director Billy Woodberry's debut at Curtas. (JA)