“'Tótem' gave me the ability to be,” says Lila Avilés, Platinum-nominated director

The Mexican director Lila Aviles recognizes, a few hours before the awards gala, that the eleventh edition of the Platino Awards is different because for it 'Tótem'with two nominations in the Ibero-American awards, has given it “the ability to be”, compared to what happened with 'La camarista', for which it received the award for Best First Feature four years ago.

“For me, 'La camarista' gave me a lot of strength, it gave me impetus and 'Tótem' allowed me to inhabit myself, it gave me the ability to be and to say 'this is me,'” says filmmaker Lila Avilés in an interview with EFE.

His recent feature film is among the selection of nominees for Best Ibero-American Fiction Film along with the Argentine 'Los criminales' and the Spanish 'Close your eyes' and 'The Snow Society', the latter being the winner of the silver statuette at the Public Awards, which were awarded on Friday in Xcaret (Mexico).

When it comes to cinemaAvilés is a “meticulous and curious” mind, a mixture with which he has been forging his way of creating, respecting his own intuition and even learning from his mistakes and thus he says that his first film, the second and the third, which he is already imagining, were born.

Although it stands out that 'Totem' It is a story that goes through her personally because her daughter lost her father when she was very little, as did Sol, the girl protagonist of this film that portrays the day of a Mexican family in which Tona, a young father with a chronic illness that shortens his life, birthday.

“My daughter's father died and that process marked us, and I wanted to make a very close story,” confesses to add that this film was very close to its reality, but that it also had a touch of “delirium and fiction.”

This fortunate cinematographic “delirium” created by Avilés in which death, love and women are the protagonists has a name that the director finds unoriginal and at the same time unique.

“There are several films that already bear the name Tótem, but this is my Tótem, a word that means everything and is a kind of offering to the family, to unity,” he said.

About the awards

For the also nominated for best director in this eleventh edition of the Platino Xcaret 2024 Awards (-along with the Spanish Juan Antonio Bayona ('The Snow Society'), Isabel Coixet ('Un amor') and the Chilean Pablo Larraín ( 'The Count') – it is wonderful to be lucky and be in these awards ceremonies, which he claims are not a competition, but a way to participate and continue making films.

“I always say that I can't be a filmmaker if I don't watch movies, I also build myself from other people's films”he shares after acknowledging his admiration for the work of the nominated directors and remembering how much he liked 'The Club', by Larraín, a film that was part of the third edition of the Platino Awards in 2016.

The director was enthusiastic about her admiration for cinema and continuing to create and said to herself: “It can't take me long to make my third film.”

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