Invisible (2023): Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Date: Thursday 30 May 2024, 13:00-14:30
Where: BLOC Cinema, ArtsOne Building, QMUL Mile End Campus

The School of Languages, Linguistics and Film (SLLF) at QMUL invites you to a screening of:

'Invisible' (30 mins), a short documentary directed by Valentina Montoya Robledo, Daniel Gómez Restrepo & Andrés Gonzalez Robledo (in Spanish with English subtitles).

Invisible refers to something that is present but not seen. In Colombia, the contribution of domestic workers has long been invisible, but today they are speaking out. This documentary film is part of the project ‘Invisible Commutes’ that seeks to make domestic workers’ long, and often violent, commutes more visible and to campaign for public transport that takes their needs into account.

Synopsis: Two domestic workers, Reinalda in Medellín and Belén in Bogotá, explain the challenges they face when travelling on public transport day after day from their own neighbourhoods to the communities where they work. Their long, costly and overcrowded journeys are invisible to their employers and to those that plan the public transport networks. Despite everything, they carry on with characteristic tenacity. Each day they wake up and keep a part of Colombian society going by undertaking a job that is undervalued and underpaid. They fight for a better life – for themselves, for their communities and above all for their children and grandchildren and their co-workers.

Following the screening, we will hold a panel discussion and audience Q&A about the film and the issues it raises.

The panel will include:

• Valentina Montoya Robledo, one of the film’s directors and a Senior Researcher in Gender and Mobility at the University of Oxford.
• Sara Gomes, the Campaigning Coordinator at the Nanny Solidarity Network.
• Julio D Dávila, Professor of Urban Policy and International Development at UCL.
• Rachel Randall, Reader in Latin American Studies at QMUL.

This screening is being organised as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project 'Affective and Immaterial Labour in Latin(x) American Culture'. For more information about the project, see the blog site, which includes a post that Valentina and Rachel have co-authored about the making of Invisible and about the Invisible Commutes project.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

QMUL ArtsOne, Mile End Road, London, United Kingdom