João Pedro Bim’s documentary juxtaposes propagandist newsreel footage with 1960s audio recordings of the military dictatorship debating legalised torture

In December 1968, the cabinet of Brazil’s ruling military dictatorship gathered for a classified meeting which resulted in the issuance of Institutional Act No 5, a decree that stripped dissenting citizens of their civil rights and led to a blood-soaked period of forced disappearances, torture and extra-judicial killings. While the meeting was recorded, the tapes only emerged in recent years. João Pedro Bim’s documentary overlays contemporaneous propaganda newsreels with these damning recordings to create an intriguing juxtaposition that reveals the covert machinations of dictatorial rule.

Roused from their archival slumber, the newsreel images conjure a mirage of prosperity and unity. In these state-produced materials, marching soldiers, modernist new-builds and flag-waving patriots are ubiquitous. The recorded statements made by high-ranking officials at the infamous meeting accompany these signposts of social harmony, as the plan to restrict democratic freedoms is laid out clinically and methodically. Cast in a new light, the smiling faces that populate the jingoistic films turn eerily grotesque.