DOK.fest München 2025: The Invisible Contract (dir. Luciana Kaplan) | Review
Luciana Kaplan invites us to open our eyes to the women we pass on street corners in Mexico City or in the subway tunnels—broom in hand or pushing a garbage cart—and to question the excesses of capitalism and patriarchy at work in the country.
Every weekday, for long hours, Rosalba, Gregoria, Martha, and Claudia sweep the streets, collect household trash, scrub airport bathrooms or clean the metro platforms. Armed with makeshift tools lent to them by the companies that hire them, and driven by the need to provide for their families, these four Mexican women work for private contractors to whom Mexico City has outsourced public sanitation. These are shell companies, designed to keep workers in a constant state of precarity. Their labor is neither backed by a written contract nor officially declared, leaving them with no access to public healthcare or retirement benefits. Unjustified wage deductions are routine, and the companies are frequently dissolved and reestablished under new names, allowing their owners and associates to carry on profiting without ever being held accountable for their employees’ rights or demands.
Kaplan chose to shoot The Invisible Contract in black and white, using the absence of color to underscore the testimonies of these four women. The stark monochrome plays with the notion of time, reminding us that class struggle and the ravages of capitalism remain alive and well in the Global South—now disproportionately burdening women. In Mexico’s deeply patriarchal society, where inequality still runs rampant, many women are left with no choice but to accept precarious or even dangerous jobs to survive: elderly women with no retirement rights, single mothers, or children forced to support their families.
Kaplan immerses us in the everyday lives of these workers, weaving together direct interviews, cinéma vérité, and reenacted scenes. In some cases, the director had to rely on actresses to give voice to the women while protecting their anonymity—for their safety and to ensure they keep their jobs. Often overlooked and treated as part of the urban background, these women are made visible by Kaplan, who restores their humanity through four intimate portraits of resilience, impossible to ignore.
The Invisible Contract had its German premiere at DOK.fest München 2025.
The 40th edition of DOK.fest München is running on May 7-18, 2025, in Munich, Germany.
