Over the course of one night, René, a Brazilian immigrant in Lisbon, grapples with the choice between staying illegally in an increasingly alien city or returning to the home she once fled. Her external struggles and internal conflicts intertwine, exposing the complexities of life between two worlds.
Wandering, a way of life. As the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk wrote, “change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity”. In Those Who Move, the first short film by Stephanie Ricci, this wandering is permeated by a melancholy: in René’s gaze, facing the port of Lisbon; in the jokes exchanged between friends that exorcise the hardships of the migrant condition; or in the most beautiful stairway encounter of recent times. The stairways, also symbols of movement and transition, embrace this moment of disarming intimacy. Each fragment of René’s night is revealing, formally chameleonic, and yet subtle and organic – possibly even slipping past the gaze of passersby. Those Who Move reveals the sincere and relentless search for a connection, for a sense of belonging that can calm the wandering soul. (Susana Santos Rodrigues)
