BERLINALE & EFM REVIEW DAILY COMPETITION TOTEM

VERDICT: Mexican director Lila Avilés shows sensibility and a strong hand in 'Totem', her second feature.

Lucy Virgen, February 20, 2023

Lila Avilés’ directing debut made a lot of noise on the international scene in 2018. The Chambermaid, her first feature, won awards from Havana to Minsk. This raised a lot of expectations for the screening of Totem, her second film, which bowed as part of Berlin competition. Expectations were rewarded with an intimate film and impeccable direction.

Totem follows an afternoon in the life of Sol, a seven-year-old girl. She spends the day at her grandfather’s house while her mother works; meanwhile, her aunts, uncles and grandfather prepare a birthday party for her sick father.

It soon becomes clear that something serious is going on in the family, just from the way the Sol is treated (Continues page 4)

VERDICT: A hard-pressed couple in Yemen’s port city of Aden search for a doctor to perform an abortion in Amr Gamal’s excellent, understated yet hard-hitting portrait of a family and their city in desperation.

Jay Weissberg, February 20, 2023 There’s every reason to celebrate the completion of any Yemeni feature, given the pummeled country’s horrific ordeal since the civil war began almost a decade ago, but The Burdened is far too strong a film to be saddled with merely a pity prize. In his second feature, director Amr Gamal (10 Days Before the Wedding) presents a clear-eyed look at what life is like in war-torn Aden, where a formerly middle-class couple ...www.thefilmverdict.com