The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) put an end to the Republican government supported in Parliament by liberal Republicans, communists, and socialists. The conservative winners started a harsh repression with expedite death sentences for the military and civilians who had fought for the Republican side. A handful of guerrillas took refuge across the frontier, in a remote mountain village of Portugal and survived by smuggling goods, and shelter out of kindness. On December 21, 1946, the Spanish and Portuguese police encircled the village, demolished several houses with howitzer fire, and attacked the hide-outs by machine-guns and carbines. Eighteen Portuguese were arrested for an year without trial, and the ensuing fear lasted even after the April 1974 democratization of Portugal. Fifty years after the event, direct and indirect witnesses open up their personal memories for the camera, the village, a subjective history - as pure as the the mountain air of the rough region they inhabit.
