Flor da Baixa

Flòr da Baixa is the story of a trip that begins in Lisbon, stops off at Rio de Janeiro, Marseille and Taranto and ends back up in the Portuguese city. It is a film about absence, about something that is missing, always and everywhere: in one’s own room, on a sunny, faraway beach, in foreign neighborhoods or between old, familiar walls. It’s a diary of two solitudes, two parallel visions of places and bodies, as they wait to find and recognize each other in the same gaze, as they finally see the same image from the window of the Flòr da Baixa. “This film had no screenplay, it was self-produced, shot at low cost without any sets, using a hand-held camera, borrowing unsuspecting ‘actors’ from their daily lives. Flòr da Baixa composed itself, one trip after another, following the simple outline of distance and absence. I let the cities of Rio, Marseille and Taranto open themselves up freely, searching through the streets, in the courtyards, in the rooms, without knowing what I’d find. I shot every image as though it were something to save, to give to someone, something to share upon my return…” (M. Santini)