In November 2018, the curators of the show Nous, saisonniers, saisonnières… Genève 1931 – 2019 put out a call for projects. They were looking for an original proposal to create a series of portraits of former guest workers. I sensed their desire to record authentic testimonies with a film concept of some kind. Passing on the story of these guest workers’ lives to their children and grandchildren…

“Who built Thebes of the seven gates?” Bertolt Brecht asks in his poem Questions from a Worker Who Reads, conjuring up the absence of certain key players in the historical narrative. From constructing suburbs and major infrastructure projects, to raising the imposing edifices of the international organizations in the city, guest workers, along with their colleagues facing less economic…

Domitila is an indigenous Peruvian woman who has been an undocumented domestic worker in Geneva for 20 years. When her daughter died a few years ago, she faced an unprecedented situation for her, i.e., economic hardship and extreme isolation because she spoke only Quechua and Spanish. Having reached the age of retirement but without any possibility of receiving a pension, she turned to a legal…