Tótem

Seven-year-old Sol spends the whole day inside the preparations for a birthday party for her father. The house is crowded: aunts, a grandfather, neighbours, the kitchen, a power fault, the cake. Her father is in the room upstairs and he is ill; everyone knows and nobody says it. Lila Aviles wrote and directed. Naima Senties plays Sol. The camera stays at the child's height almost throughout; adult conversation is half heard, seen through gaps in doorways. The film never shows death, only records the state of the house circling around it. The structure is one day, one place. There are no transitions; the camera simply moves through the house. It played in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023 and was submitted as Mexico's Oscar entry the same year. The naturalness of the crowded scenes is striking; most of the cast are inexperienced and the talk overlaps. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet family films and a child's point of view. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events; the film passes through a day and explains nothing.