Just stepping into the Renoir Floridablanca cinema brought tears to many. Monica de la Torre, Rafael Gómez, Núria Sanjuan, Noelia Riaño and Diana Virgos attended on October 12 to see the movie ‘On the Margins’ and they finished acclaimed by the public gathered in the projection room. The film directed by Juan Diego Botto and starring Penélope Cruz and Luis Tosar narrates with great humanity the drama of the evictions in Madrid. That day the five activists of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) They were the real artists. It was not be for lowerly. Seeing them with the already famous green t-shirts of the anti-eviction movement gave goosebumps.
of the tower was evicted from an apartment in the Eixample from Barcelona three years ago. “I separated from my husband, I worked for him… and I lost everything. I alone was unable to pay the 1,000 euros a month that the flat cost and, although we stopped a first eviction, I had to leave the second time,” Explain. After spending several months in pensions and various rooms financed by social services, she has already obtained a emergency floor of the social rental exchange.
Gómez, on the other hand, managed to stay in her apartment in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, although the fear of eviction led her to consider suicide. “I live in an apartment on the thirteenth floor. Many times I looked out on the balcony and thought… if i shot it would all be over“, he remembered excitedly as he left the screening. His apartment was in danger (and is still in danger). The one he bought in 1990 and ended up paying three years later. The same apartment that seized him in 2006 after he was forced to appear as the sole administrator “I’m shaking…they ask me more than twice as much and I don’t have that money,” he whispers. .
Years without setting foot in a room
Sanjuan continues to live with the fear and anxiety of not knowing when his eviction will take place. The apartment in which she lives as a tenant since 1995 is now owned by a bank, which has already exposed three reasons to evict her to a judge. “Me I’m in debt up to the bars…my florist business went bankrupt and I can’t afford anything else,” says this struggling mom. “Now when they ring the bell i cringeI don’t open the door to anyone… if they kick me out, where will my son and I go?” he wonders.
The three of them, together with two other activists from the platform, decided to go see the film that talks about their lives. The lives of thousands of people who cannot pay their roofs or other less vital things. De la Torre, for example, had not set foot in a cinema for years. “When you’re like this, when you don’t have anything… you can’t spend the money on luxuryonly in priority things: eating,” he said at the entrance.
The film lasted two hours and 45 minutes that flew by. They recognized many colleagues from the Madrid PAH on the big screen, and in the faces of the actors they saw their faces and those of their fellow evictions reflected. “Penélope Cruz doesn’t excite me,” De la Torre acknowledged before seeing the film. Afterwards, she could only applaud her. “I have not seen her, I have seen a mother desperate for her children, I have seen all the compañeras from the PAH, I have relived all the evictions…”, he explained. When leaving, Gómez admitted that he spent the movie crying seas.
From bank worker to would-be activist
But the highlight of the show came when the lights in the room came back on. The spectators were stunned and speechless. And Diana Virgos took the opportunity to raise her voice and remind them that what they had just seen on the big screen is the reality of many people. “It is what we live every day in the PAH”. And she asked them not to remain indifferent. “Our assemblies are open to all. If this is happening to you, don’t be ashamed or afraid, it’s not your fault, it is a system that wants to enrich itself at the cost of our lives. If it doesn’t happen to you, help us, join us,” he implored.
The excitement in the room was palpable. And this probably caused a spectator to go directly towards her. “I’m already retired, but I have been director of a branch of a bank. I’m so sorry, I feel so guilty. I didn’t know what they were signing, I’ve seen it with my own eyes…”, he admitted with moist eyes. “It’s okay, you were the last piece of an unfair system and now you can have a second chance coming to our assemblies and helping us stop evictionsVirgos replied.
Related news
It is clear that the film far exceeded expectations and the fiercest criticism: those who know that this fiction is not. “This film has to be seen by everyone, including those who cannot afford to be here: that they show it in institutes, in civic centers… and that those who see her do not turn their back on us anymore. That if they see us in an eviction, join together and help us stop it,” Sanjuan asked.
“It is that human rights and social struggles are not won sitting on a sofa or in a movie theater seat,” added Riaño. “If not, we will all end up like this,” Gómez pointed out, pointing to the street in front of the cinema. A man slept curled up between cardboard at the gates of a parking lot. “No one sees her, but she is here. We didn’t get here on time,” she lamented.