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Spain’s housing crisis has finally come for you. Your home has just been sold to a vulture fund and they want you out. What would you do?
The residents at Calle Tribulete 7 came together and set out on a path of resistance, one that would transform them into a Madrid-wide symbol of the battle for housing rights. The documentary Soy Tribulete 7 (I am Tribulete 7) takes us inside the 107-year-old Lavapiés building and into the lives of an extraordinary community whose looming eviction launched the fight of their lives.
The story began in February 2024, when neighbours received a letter telling them their building was being sold to a vulture fund. News spread fast through the barrio and, the moment Leah and Elisa heard, they picked up their cameras and headed straight to the block where over 100 neighbours were still in shock.
For the past two years, the pair have been working closely with a cast of tenants – Cris, Nani, Blanca, José, María Jesús and Antonia – to tell the story of how one building became the stage for the most trailblazing resistance the barrio has ever seen.
Soy Tribulete 7 presents the daily lives of Madrid’s now-iconic bloque en lucha tenants, capturing their collective fight and how their vibrant lives have been violently disrupted. Through intimate interviews, observational footage, archival material, music and avant-guard narration by 80-year-old actress Ana Martín Garcia, the film reveals the human stories behind the tenants’ very public struggle.
In an evocative and dynamic way, Leah and Elisa document the resilience, solidarity and ingenuity that arises when communities fight back, showing that even under relentless real-estate harassment, these tenants cannot be silenced – and neither can the barrio of Lavapiés.
Meet the co-directors
Leah Pattem is an award-winning journalist and photographer who has spent a decade covering underreported community stories in Madrid. With nearly two decades of teaching experience, she designs and leads journalism and photography courses for school and university students, as well as for professional journalists seeking to broaden their practice. Leah is the founder of Madrid No Frills, a platform dedicated to telling the stories that define the city today, particularly those of marginalised and displaced communities.
Elisa González is a communicator, photojournalist, and documentary filmmaker with extensive experience covering social realities in Spain and Latin America. Deeply connected to Lavapiés – where her mother and grandmother grew up and where she now lives – she focuses on documenting the struggles of her neighbours.
Leah and Elisa are friends, neighbours and colleagues passionate about telling the stories of their barrio of Lavapiés. After covering the residents’ first protest as journalists in the spring of 2024, they were inspired to dig deeper into the story. Over a glass of wine in the barrio, they agreed to begin filming the residents of Calle Tribulete 7. What began as an improvised project grew into a two-year endeavour, involving hundreds of hours of filming and thousands of hours of editing and production – all done without funding and in their free time, alongside their regular work.
This is their first documentary together but it doesn’t end here. Over the coming months and years, they are committed to sharing their one-hour film for free with audiences around the world, as part of their own fight for the constitutional right to housing in Spain.
Soy Tribulete 7 is not just the story of a building or the trauma of eviction, but a story about community,” says co-director Leah Pattem. “Our film shows the strength and resilience of a group of people who didn’t know each other before receiving a letter telling them they had to leave. The story that follows is shaped by their personalities, jobs, connections, and tireless commitment – not only to their cause but to every tenant fighting to remain in their home. We hope audiences leave inspired to see the right to housing as a shared struggle worth defending.
We wanted to document this struggle because they are taking our neighbourhood away from us, and we refuse to let them evict our neighbours,” says co-director Elisa González. “Tribulete 7 is Lavapiés in a single building: a diverse, intergenerational community of working people who, while living with job insecurity, have placed culture and alternative art at the service of resistance. This documentary is born from admiration for their strength in the face of a Goliath trying to push us out of our homes. It is our way of denouncing the vulture funds buying up Madrid’s neighbourhoods and of saying that the barrio belongs to its residents, not to speculators. We want them here, with us.
Watch the Trailer
Soy Tribulete 7 is out in theatres now. Follow the account @soytribulete7documental to find out when the next free screening is.
If you have a space and would like to organise a free screening with us, get in touch! Email hola@madridnofrills.com
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