I Love You As You Are

Production: Laranja Azul, EGEAC

Every year, in Lisbon, at the beginning of summer, Saint Anthony’s Day is celebrated. In the oldest districts, street festivities and popular community marches are organized. On Saint Anthoy’s night, each district presents its march in a competition parade along the city’s main avenue. This film follows one family from the BICA neighbourhood during the preparation and rehearsals for [a] parade through the point of view of its various members.  The expectation grows: will [the] BICA neighbourhood win this year’s march?

“Silvia Firmino’s film is a remarkable portrait of a community, a view into the persistency of a “typical” Lisbon resisting touristy and postcard Lisbon stereotypes.”

Tradition becomes present, it enters daily-life with the filmmakers’ lightness and patient but never yielding complicity.  A sensitive movement that becomes cinema.” II Manifesto