Sofia Oliveira and her brother Thiago decided to put together the stories about their family so that they “will not forget who they are and where they are from”. A tale that spans four generations of Oliveiras, Return to Lisboa, is described by Sofia as “one of the most important projects” they have ever done to honour the lives that their grandparents and parents lived.

Ansing made clothes for a living, relying only on an old sewing machine that now sits quietly in her home. When she was younger, she would mend her children’s clothes with her gentle hands and it was those same gentle hands that prepared simple yet beautiful meals – and the very same that did the laundry and the cleaning.

To celebrate the life of their loving father Julian Perez, his daughter Cristina decided that his biography needed to be written in her lifetime. “I don’t want to forget him and everything he did for our family. He lived a difficult life but he endured for our sake. I want my own children and their children to get to know Papa even decades after his death,” she expressed during a phone call.

Georgia was a housewife or so her son Charles thought. She was a doting mother who always helped her son with his homework, prepared his lunch, and was present in every parent-teacher meeting.

A few decades later, during her funeral, Charles found that his mother was actually an analyst for an intelligence agency.