As Flores
2025, 62′

Throughout the four seasons of the year, a square in the center of Lisbon undergoes a transformation. The repetition of days is observed through the four windows of a street kiosk. “As Flores” uses the kiosk space as a filmic device; anchored in place, facing outward, central and panoramic. From fixed shots always filmed from inside the kiosk, we find an inverted panopticon, a watchtower. Figures appear and reappear, gestures are repeated, routines are consolidated, as well as their ruptures – the paving of the street, the painting of the post box, the pruning of trees, a raid, tourism.

Ten years ago, I walked down Rua de São Marçal towards Praça das Flores, where I spent a year inside a kiosk with my cell phone resting inside a transparent cup serving as a tripod. The images I filmed were all published on @aneladamosogarff and on a Monday in April, almost all of them were deleted. I spent thousands of hours inside that kiosk serving people and watching the weather change. The occupation of public space by those who live and work there is a gesture of resistance to the privatization of what is common. The film begins and ends with the bodies of the people who work and have worked there: on the walls, in the pharmacy, on the sidewalk, in the optician’s, in the trees, in the supermarket, on the asphalt road, in the buildings, and in the kiosk. In between, those who passed by with their words and gestures, their pains, anger, joys, and passions. The images I filmed come from a body that remained motionless in one place for a year, looking and being looked at. It is not a film about a place, it is a film of a place.

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Polido is a musician and artist from Marinha Grande.
Taking a materialistic approach to sound, Polido works on issues related to cultural memory, tradition, sound technology, and the links between music history and sociopolitics.
His music, united by a personal vocabulary, brings together surreal narratives for concrete spaces.
The work takes the form of concerts, mixes, performances, texts, lectures, listening sessions, or installations for European contexts such as Batalha – Centro de Cinema, ICA London, 12th Berlin Biennale, MAAT, Sismógrafo, NTS Radio, Sonsbeek 20->24, Ruhr Ding, and Spirit Shop.
Polido runs the publishing house Projecto de Vida, through which he organizes music and conversation evenings.
His music has been published by ANA, Holuzam, Bus Editions, Lynn, Left Alone, and c-.
At the same time, he collaborates with other artists and filmmakers in the sound post-production of films as a sound designer and mixer
and is currently a guest lecturer at the UCP School of Arts in Porto.