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 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.

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 Pattem and Elisa González 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.

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.

Reviews :

Soy Tribulete 7 documents, records, and reflects an era

El Pais

The story of their struggle could have been lost to time, but thanks to this magnificent documentary, it will live on and show others how to resist real estate greed

El Diario

It was a moment that made me realise that culture is not merely a reflection of resistance – it is resistance, and it is part of Spain’s new fightback, for the right to good, affordable, secure housing for all.

The Guardian

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