‘Soy Tribulete 7’: Brand-new documentary in-the-making launches crowdfunding campaign

Lea la versión española de este artículo

By Leah Pattem and Elisa González, both neighbours of Lavapiés

Your home has been sold to a vulture fund who suddenly wants you out. What would you do? 

This uplifting film follows the tenants of Tribulete 7 as they come together to fight back in ways never seen before in Madrid and, in the process, win the support of the entire neighbourhood of Lavapiés.

Concert and protest in front of Calle Tribulete 7, Lavapiés

In February this year, tenants of Calle Tribulete 7 received a letter telling them that their building was about to be sold to a vulture fund. The moment Eli and I heard the news, we picked up our cameras and headed straight to the block where over 100 of our neighbours were suddenly facing eviction. 

For our upcoming documentary, we’ve been working closely with a group of tenants from Tribulete 7 to tell the story of the building and its residents. So far, we’ve spent eight months filming tenants and how their presence in the neighbourhood is what makes Lavapiés valuable – so valuable, in fact, that investors want it for themselves.

Inside the building of Tribulete 7

The story

Nani is a teacher – she teaches disabled children how to DJ and to be stars. Cristina is a comedian and performs in local theatres, making her the natural choice as the voice of the neighbours. Yoli runs a local market bar – she’s watched other businesses come and go but she’s determined to stay put. Blanca’s husband was born in the building and has never moved – they’re both a living archive of Lavapiés. Antonia is from Chile and she’s just bought a new fridge – an act of resilience to demonstrate that the eviction will not destabilise her life. And finally, María Jesus is the third generation of her family to run the legendary shoe shop downstairs, which was long a important meeting point for residents until its closure in July. But they all continue fighting.

Some of the neighbours of Tribulete 7

These investors have watched the neighbours of Lavapiés build our culture and our community. It’s us who’ve made this place what it is, and we did it for everyone, not a vulture fund that thinks they can buy us, rip up the building’s beautiful tiled floors and evict all the tenants. This is Tribulete 7, it belong to its residents and Lavapiés belongs to us.

And so the tenants of Tribulete 7 are fighting their eviction by tapping into the very elements that make Lavapiés valuable to investors: culture. By harnessing the neighbourhood’s historic working-class community power and mobilising the entire city to their doorstep through music and theatre, tenants are reclaiming the cultural value of the neighbourhood and converting it into a weapon of resistance in a way never seen before.

Protest/concert view from inside the shoe shop of Tribulete 7 Street

The team

Leah Pattem is an award-winning British/Indian journalist, photographer and teacher who has been covering underreported community stories in Madrid for the past 11 years. Leah works with El País, BBC, Guardian, El Diario and more, but you may know Leah better as Madrid No Frills, a home for the stories that define Madrid today.

Elisa González is a photojournalist and documentary film-making with a long career documenting social movements both around Spain and Latin America. Since she returned to Madrid, she’s dedicated herself to documenting her mother and grandmother’s neighbourhood of Lavapiés, and her photographs have appeared in El Salto Diario, Madrid en acción, La Razón, and Madrid No Frills.

Soy Tribulete 7 Crowdfunding

We aim to raise as much money as possible to help us get our documentary across the finishing line. We need to pay for lawyers to be able to hold vulture funds to account, for professional film and sound technicians, production software, and funds to support local cinemas and theatres to distribute our film, plus so much more. In order to raise this money, we have many plans but, the first thing we’re launching is the Ruta Radical!

The Ruta Radical

The Ruta Radical will be a 90-minute walk around Lavapiés which will set the scene of the documentary and explain, in detail, the context and conditions of Spain’s housing crisis that led us to create the film. You will learn all about the documentary itself – like a real-life trailer! We’ll tell you about the protagonists of the film, the day-to-day reality of a community fighting to stay put, and you’ll also meet the team behind the documentary and have a drink with us afterwards!

We hope each person who joins us for the Ruta Radical will make a donation to help us fund our film and get us over the finishing line. It is a pay what you can system because, as a principal of MNF and the Soy Tribulete 7 crew, we want to make sure that our work is accessible to everyone, so we will accept your place on the Ruta Radical for any amount you choose to give.

The English Ruta Radical

  • Thursday 31 October 5pm (full)
  • Friday 8 November at 4pm (5 places left)

La Ruta Radical Española

  • Viene pronto…

Sign up now to secure a place on our Ruta Radical!

Simply send me an email to hola@madridnofrills or use the contact form below to secure your spot on an upcoming Ruta Radical!

Nos vemos en la calle ✊🏾

Leah and Eli 🙂

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