Marta Sousa Ribeiro

Idling afternoons, drugs, heartbreaks, psychedelic moods immersed in music. An adrenaline rush. Lisbon as the backdrop for a drifting youth.

In the second half of the 1980s, an Portuguese independent music publisher was created, Ama Romanta. It was the alternative to the hidden censorship of the big label industry and its founder was João Peste (the charismatic vocalist of Pop Dell'Arte).

A November day in Porto, in a square where skaters jump up a flight of stairs. Three characters share a moment, which is divided into three subjective shots and which, without dialogue, are intended to characterize them emotionally. The idea of shared love is called into question.

It's last week at school, but Simon's not studying for his finals. His parents have divorced and seem to be waiting for a change that never comes. Simon gets tired of waiting. Could he get a one-way ticket to the USA? Would it be possible to make objects explode from afar? And what if time could be reversed? Or if freedom is only to be found in movies?

In a remote rural area, a woman on the run has a supernatural encounter surrounded by enigmatic sounds. As she immerses herself in that reality, she is confronted with unexpected phenomena that her rational mind cannot understand.

The character in red is contained in a web of repeated and interlocking actions of her routine. However, the yearn to free herself from automatisms and frustrations grows stronger and louder. From the inside to the outside, from the mechanical to the spontaneous, one character becomes several. They explore the possibilities of doing without thinking.

Fábio’s a tough dealer from the neighborhood of Mouraria. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. Fighting to stay alive, he deals drugs and makes sure all debts are collected. In one of those incursions, things don’t go as planned, bringing to the surface what laid within.

A group of disillusioned youths in Lisbon are consumed by the promise of the “club”. Irreverent, alien, and playful, the film takes the audience on a trip through the underground of Portugal's capital city as its young characters get high and unleash their unpredictable energy on the streets.

A Dominican hairdresser's in Buenos Aires serves as a meeting place for all sorts of people. A place where music links them, from reggaeton to modern electronic music, and where dancing expresses freedom and joie de vivre - even for the very youngest.

Images from my family archive remind me of a text by Borges. Little by little, I transform Averroes into my grandfather, my grandfather into Borges and Borges into me. In this movement, it becomes increasingly difficult to look at any of them without, too, glimpsing all the others.