Avilés's second feature film, Tótem, was entered into the main competition at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Ecumenical Award for Best Film. For her film, she also won the Best Director award at the 2023 Jerusalem Film Festival. It was also selected for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.
Tótem, directed by Lila Avilés, is a Mexican drama that takes place over a single day. The story is told mostly through the eyes of Sol, a seven-year-old girl who goes with her mother to her grandfather’s house. Everyone there is getting ready for a birthday party for Sol’s father, Tona, a painter who is dying of cancer. The adults don’t say it out loud around the kids, but it’s pretty clear this is probably his last birthday and that the party is also a way of wishing him well and saying goodbye.
The house is full of family members and friends who are all dealing with the situation in different ways. Sol’s aunts are busy with party preparations, one of them stressing over little mistakes, and a caregiver named Cruz takes care of Tona and helps keep things running. Sol is curious and keeps asking questions, but she only picks up on pieces of what the adults are talking about. Throughout the day she hangs around, plays with her family, and waits for the chance to see her dad.
What makes the film interesting is that it never shows the sadness in a big dramatic way; there isn’t much of a plot. Instead, it focuses on small everyday moments, like people cooking, joking around, naming a goldfish, and giving gifts. Because of this, the film feels like it’s about how a family comes together to love someone while they still can in a realistic matter. Avilés uses many cinematographic tools to make the scene feel homey and realistic. The party at the end brings everyone together around Tona, and the film closes on an empty bed that is left open to interpretation. Movies tend to draw their audiences in by action or tragedy, but this movie is just an anticlimactic documentation of the day of the party.
Describes the setting of a scene in a play or a film. It refers to everything placed on the stage or in front of the camera—including people. In other words, mise en scène is a catch-all for everything that contributes to the visual presentation and overall “look” of a production. When translated from French, it means “placing on stage.”
This is the art of photography and visual storytelling in a motion picture or television show. Cinematography comprises all on-screen visual elements, including lighting, framing, composition, camera motion, camera angles, film selection, lens choices, depth of field, zoom, focus, color, exposure, and filtration. Cinematography sets and supports the overall look and mood of a film’s visual narrative. Each visual element that appears on screen, a.k.a. the mise-en-scène of a film, can serve and enhance the story—so it is the cinematographer’s responsibility to ensure that every element is cohesive and support the story. Filmmakers often choose to spend the majority of their budget on high-quality cinematography to guarantee that the film will look incredible on the big screen.
Editing is the process of putting a film together–the selection and arrangement of shots and scenes. Editing can condense space and time, emphasize separate elements and bring them together, and organize material in such a way that patterns of meaning become apparent. In addition, editing can determine how a film is perceived: for instance, quick, rapid cuts can create a feeling of tension, while a long take can create a more dramatic effect. The first photoplays generally had no cutting, owing to the fact that they were single-reel films; once filming began, you could not stop until the film ran out. (https://filmglossary.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/term/editing/)
Sound is an integral part in a film. It refers to everything that the audience hears including sound effects, words and music. Sound is used in films for various purposes, including: providing the information to the viewer about the location of the scene, heightening the mood, telling the audience about the characters and advancing the plot. Every person who watches a film realizes that the choice of voices, soundtrack and music present in a film affect the way that the viewer perceives a particular film. As a result, the sound is an important and integral element of the film, one that determines the way that the viewer experiences and understands a film as a visual experience.
Narrative analysis is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. A narrative can be considered to be the chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space. In order to analyze the narrative of a film, we need to first make the distinction between the plot of the film and the story of the film. This is sometimes referred to as the discourse and story of a film. Narrative may also be called the story thought story mainly refers to the events that describe the narrative.
Film genres are various forms or identifiable types, categories, classifications or groups of films. (Genre comes from the French word meaning "kind," "category," or "type"). These provide a convenient way for scriptwriters and film-makers to produce, cast and structure their narratives within a manageable, well-defined framework. Genres also offer the studios an easily 'marketable' product, and give audiences satisfying, expected and predictable choices. Genres refers to recurring, repeating and similar, familiar or instantly-recognizable patterns, styles, themes, syntax, templates, paradigms, motifs, rules or generic conventions.