João Miguel Real

With the Tagus River serving as both backdrop and leitmotif, “Setembro” is an animated short film about a genuine Lisbon. As the narrative progresses, the city full of colors, traditions and voices quickly gives way to gentrified spaces and foreign tourists’ voices, which now overlap the locals’, turning Lisbon into a new place. With no space for its former intimacy, the city transforms itself, a process that moves it ever further from its residents

K just crashed his Mercedes-Benz into a tree, moments after trying to avoid running down a small wild animal that ran across his path. He is on a backwater road in the countryside and it’s a very dark night. His evening has only just begun...

A foreigner arrives in a new city. He does not speak the language of the locals nor does he look like them: instead of two, he has several arms, like an octopus. Whenever he wants, the foreigner can pull off an arm and it grows back. He approaches people and even offers them his arms. In time, the octopus-man becomes part of the city, until the day he learns the new language...

This is the story of a sixty day long walk in Cape Verde. No mobile phone, no watch, no plans for what to do next – only the bare essentials in the backpack. Out traveller explores the mountains, the villages, the sea, a talking tortoise, the goats, the music, the dry haze, the people of Cape Verde and an essential part of himself.

Clélia is a lonely woman that talks to her flowers.