From Rio to Colorado: Adriana Lisboa’s Journey of Immigration and Identity.

Adriana Lisboa by Montes-Bradley

There's something deeply moving about watching someone describe their first encounter with snow. In Eduardo Montes-Bradley's 2012 documentary Lisboa, Brazilian writer Adriana Lisboa recalls arriving in Colorado during a December blizzard in 2006—everything white, the airport invisible, a complete sensory shock after leaving the burning summer heat of Rio de Janeiro. "It was the first time that I saw snow in my life," she says, and you can still hear the wonder in her voice.

This moment sets the tone for a remarkable 30-minute portrait of one of Brazil's most important contemporary writers as she navigates life as an expatriate in Boulder County, Colorado. The film, available on Alexander Street and Vimeo, offers an intimate glimpse into how geographical displacement shapes both identity and artistic creation.

The 30-minute documentary is available for viewing on Alexander Street and Vimeo, and was premiered on PBS local stations in Virginia, and Colorado.

A Writer's Writer

Adriana Lisboa isn't just any Brazilian author—she's literary royalty. Winner of the prestigious José Saramago Prize for her novel Symphony in White, she was named one of the 39 most important Latin American writers under 39 by the Hay Festival. Her novel Crow Blue was chosen as a book of the year by The Independent in London. But what makes this documentary so compelling isn't her accolades—it's her humanity.

Born in Rio in 1970, Lisboa grew up splitting time between the urban intensity of Laranjeiras and her grandfather's farm in the countryside. This duality—city and nature, intensity and tranquility—would become central to her work. The documentary captures how these early experiences shaped her perspective on place, belonging, and the natural world.

The Poetry of Displacement

From Rio to Colorado: Adriana Lisboa’s Journey of Immigration and Identity

Director Eduardo Montes-Bradley, himself an immigrant filmmaker from Argentina, brings a unique sensitivity to Lisboa's story. Rather than creating a typical talking-heads documentary, he lets Lisboa's thoughts unfold naturally as she moves through her Colorado environment. The result feels more like visual poetry than conventional biography.

Adriana Lisboa

Some of the film's most beautiful moments come when Lisboa reflects on the ocean. Standing in landlocked Colorado, she muses about the mysterious life beneath Copacabana's waves—"a sort of mysterious kind of life that we don't really get to relate to, we don't interact with but we know is there." Then comes the revelation that Colorado itself was once underwater, that the mountains she now walks were once beneath ancient seas. It's a perfect metaphor for how the past remains present, how all places carry the memory of what they once were.

The Honest Reality of Immigration

What sets this documentary apart is its unflinching look at the complexities of immigrant experience. Lisboa doesn't romanticize her journey. She describes her initial reluctance to return to the United States after experiencing post-9/11 security measures, feeling "somewhat disrespected" by the new protocols. She talks honestly about the randomness that brought her to Colorado—meeting a Brazilian man in Rio who happened to live in Denver, then finding herself six months later in a place that's "not exactly Denver... not exactly Boulder... but Boulder County... in a town called Louisville." It's immigration as Russian nesting dolls, she says—one container inside another, each requiring its own navigation.

Adriana Lisboa

The film captures the peculiar privilege of being a "cool" immigrant. As a young woman in France, Lisboa noticed how differently she was treated as a Brazilian compared to her Arab immigrant friends. This awareness of immigration hierarchies adds depth to her reflections on displacement and belonging.

Family, Loss, and Literary Alchemy

Perhaps the most poignant moments in the film come when Lisboa discusses what she's left behind. Her parents still live in the same small building her grandfather built fifty years ago in Rio. She has two siblings, and together they have eight children—eight grandchildren her parents rarely see, two great-grandchildren who are growing up strangers to their Brazilian great-grandmother.

But Lisboa has made peace with loss in a way that's both heartbreaking and inspiring. "We are always missing something in life, I guess," she says matter-of-factly. "I think we pretty much have to learn how to live with the things that we lack, the things that we really miss." For Lisboa, this isn't resignation—it's creative fuel. "All this life experiences are useful things, useful tools for writing."

Environmental Conscience and Global Connections

The documentary takes an unexpected turn when Lisboa reflects on environmental destruction and global economic relationships. A voice—possibly a contractor—can be heard discussing sixty thousand dollars worth of Brazilian cherry wood used in home construction. Lisboa's response is sharp: Brazilian red wood being exported to America "so people can have a pretty house" while the rainforest disappears.

This leads to one of the film's most philosophically rich passages, where Lisboa connects speciesism to racism and sexism. "In the same way that, some time ago, white men thought they owned black men... human beings think they own animals." It's a reminder that this quiet writer in Colorado is grappling with some of the most urgent ethical questions of our time.

The Art of Translation

As both a translator and translated author, Lisboa brings unique insights to questions of cultural transmission. She's surprisingly sanguine about the inevitable losses that occur when literature crosses languages. "Sometimes I find things better in the translation than they were in the original," she admits. "And that is amazing, I mean, that is how things are."

Adriana Lisboa

This generosity toward translation mirrors her broader acceptance of transformation and adaptation. Just as her words change when moving between Portuguese and English, she has changed while moving between Brazil and Colorado—but change, in Lisboa's worldview, doesn't necessarily mean loss.

A Meditation on Home

Throughout the film, Montes-Bradley includes readings from Lisboa's novel Crow Blue, particularly passages about the protagonist Vanja's adjustment to life in Colorado after moving from Brazil. The parallels between fiction and reality create a fascinating dialogue about how writers transform lived experience into art.

The "crow blue" of the title becomes a bridge between worlds—the blue-black shells of Copacabana and the blue-black feathers of Colorado ravens. These connections across geography suggest that home might be less about place than about the capacity to find wonder and meaning wherever you are.

Why This Film Matters

In our current moment of global migration and cultural displacement, Lisboa offers a nuanced portrait of what it means to build a life across borders. Rather than presenting immigration as either triumph or tragedy, the film shows it as an ongoing process of adaptation, loss, discovery, and creative transformation.

Lisboa emerges as someone who has found a way to be fully present in Colorado while remaining deeply connected to Brazil. She hasn't chosen between identities—she has expanded to contain multitudes. Her story suggests that perhaps the most authentic response to displacement isn't to mourn what's been lost but to discover what's been gained.

The film's brief 30-minute runtime is perfectly calibrated to its contemplative approach. Like Lisboa's own writing, it trusts viewers to find meaning in quiet moments and philosophical reflections. It's a rare documentary that feels like spending an afternoon with a wise friend—someone who has thought deeply about what it means to belong to multiple places simultaneously.

For anyone interested in contemporary literature, immigration stories, or simply beautiful filmmaking, Lisboa is well worth seeking out. Available on Alexander Street and Vimeo, it stands as a testament to the power of documentary to illuminate both individual lives and universal human experiences. In following one writer's journey from Rio to Colorado, Montes-Bradley has created something approaching poetry—a meditation on displacement, memory, and the endless human capacity to make meaning from change.

Eduardo Montes-Bradley's "Lisboa" (2012) is available for viewing on Alexander Street and Vimeo. The 30-minute documentary was produced with support from the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations and premiered on PBS Virginia.