A journey through Lisbon’s suburbs through the lives of a handful of musicians establishing their place to exist in a city of complex identity struggles. Different generations and backgrounds meet, Angola to São Tome, Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau represented by old musicians and young producers.

Production notes

The music is an engaging mix of digital and analogue, new and old. A lot of it comes from DJs with MacBook Pros and music-editing software who play marathon-length parties. A lot more comes from traditional instruments such as a ferrinho, an instrument lying over the shoulder like a length of steel that produces a weirdly hypnotic thrumming noise, and a kora, a 22-string instrument from west Africa that has been used for hundreds of years.

The film shows that the current culture evolved from Lisbon’s vibrant vinyl record industry, which was also exported to countries in Africa. For Maia and Viana, making a film about music is a great way into people’s hearts and minds, a royal road, perhaps, to both the conscious and unconscious mind.

The documentary is about identity, with many of the participants hassled over visa and residency issues, but also about creativity, hedonism and fun.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian