José Sarmento Matos

The best way to discover a city is through its people. 'Show Me Lisbon' reveals the city as seen by thirteen locals, or lisboetas - who were either born there or moved there by choice and who are of different generations, areas and backgrounds. The result is a dynamic, relaxed and realistic portrait of Lisbon that looks at themes such as what it means "to be a lisboeta", the light, the river, the food, the sounds, the history, the ethnic mixes, fado and the city's facades. The artist Joana Vasconcelos, the musician Rodrigo Leao, the writer Richard Zenith, the fado singer Carminho, the street artist Vhils and the historian Jose Sarmento Matos, alongside the knife sharpeners, fishwives, old ladies of Alfama and the festival singers who show the city as it is lived in its traditional quarters. Show me Lisbon is the follow-up to Show me Rio and the second film in the Show me Cities series.

On the outskirts of Lisbon, in Seixal, Jamaica is an extremely deprived neighbourhood of unfinished buildings, inhabited by migrants from Africa or African descendants from Angola, São Tomé and Principe and Guinea Bissau. The pandemic has been deepening the poverty and the feeling of isolation of this community, segregated and stigmatised for years. The inhabitants have mostly non-qualified jobs, which makes their economic situation even much more fragile during the pandemic, and given their housing conditions they are much more exposed to the COVID-19 health crisis.