Tótem

Lila Avilés follows up her 2018 debut, The Chambermaid, with this similarly impressionistic tale that places a child at the center of a family in crisis. Over the course of a single day, seven-year-old Sol (Naíma Sentíes) musters all her will in wishing her dying father back to health, while lively preparations for his final birthday celebration go on around her. Nothing is explained as Avilés burrows deep into the beautifully textured intimacies of this large, lived-in hive of a home. Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, pets, and insects come and go to a homebound soundtrack of clinking dishes, giggling children, whispered worries, sudden anger, and the padded thuds of farewell hugs. As Sol eavesdrops into the nooks and crannies of the adult world, listening for word of her father’s salvation, we eavesdrop, too, until what at first seems fragmentary accumulates into the full weight of Sol’s joy and sorrow.