MEXICO CITY.- The feature film “Tótem,” by Lila Avilés, won five Ariel Awards – Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Montserrat Marañón) and Best New Actor (Naíma Sentíes) – at the 66th presentation of this statuette by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC).
At the ceremony, which took place at the Degollado Theater in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Áviles – known for her first film, “La camarista” – showed her emotion and happiness, so she asked her entire team to come up on stage. The plot of this film focuses on Sol, a seven-year-old girl, who spends the day at her grandfather’s house, helping with the preparations for a surprise party for her sick father. Throughout the day, chaos slowly takes over the family, breaking its foundations. Sol will embrace the essence of letting go as a liberation for existence.
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Meanwhile, the project that took home four Ariel awards was “Todo el silencio” by Diego del Río, for Best First Film, Best Actress (Adriana Llabrés), Best Female Supporting Actor (Ludwika Paleta) and Best Sound (Miguel Hernández, Mario Martínez Cobos, Liliana Villaseñor). Here, in the mornings Miriam teaches sign language and in the afternoons she is part of a professional theater production while maintaining a stable and passionate relationship with her girlfriend Lola. Despite living a life very close to that of a deaf person, her world begins to fall apart when she discovers that she is losing her sense of hearing.
Meanwhile, “Hurricane Season” by Elisa Miller won Adapted Screenplay (Miller and Daniela Gómez), Best Makeup (Alejandra Velarde), Editing (Miguel Schverdfinger and Paulina del Paso). In the story, based on the novel of the same name by Fernanda Melchor, a group of teenagers discover a corpse floating in a canal and the brutal reality of this perverse murder reveals the dark secrets of the town where they live.
The Best Documentary Feature went to “El eco” by Tatiana Huezo. It also won Best Photography (Ernesto Pardo) and Original Music (Leonardo Heiblum, Jacobo Lieberman). The story takes place in a remote and solitary valley in Mexico, punished by winter and drought, where children learn to contemplate death, illness and love. A story about feeling dizzy about life, about growing up.
David Zonana’s “Heroico” won over Costume Design (Gabriela Fernández), Art Design (Ivonne Fuentes) and Male Supporting Actor (Fernando Cuautle). Here, Luis, a teenager of Native American origin, enrolls in a military school in search of a better future. He and his new classmates are subjected to a brutal hierarchical system, in which the veteran students humiliate the newcomers.
Noé Hernández won Best Actor for “Kokoloko,” directed by Gerardo Naranjo. The action takes place in a tropical town, where Marisol seeks to feel free while navigating between the two men in her life: her lover and a violent cousin who holds her captive.
Best Visual Effects and Special Effects went to “Disappear Completely” by Luis Javier Henaine. It is a horror film. After visiting the scene of a crime, an ambitious and insensitive tabloid photographer falls victim to a mysterious illness, which takes away his senses one by one.
The Best Ibero-American Film went to “La sociedad de la nieve” (Spain), by JA Bayona. In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered to take a rugby team to Chile, crashes into a glacier in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survive the accident. Trapped in one of the most inaccessible and hostile environments on the planet, they are forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.
The short films that were recognized were “Apnea”, by Natalia Bermúdez (fiction); “Humo”, by Rita Basulto (animation) and “Norte”, by Natalia Bermúdez (documentary).
The Golden Ariels went to production designer Brigitte Broch (Art Director), actress Angélica María and film director Busi Cortés, who passed away on June 21. The gala was dedicated to costume design in film.
For his part, filmmaker Armando Casas, president of AMACC, celebrated that “the presence of women’s talent and creativity continues to increase in Mexican cinema.”
He then emphasized:
“Our cinema should accommodate all diversity, all voices and all cultures. We want a plural and inclusive cinema, because cinema is one of the most powerful cultural and identity expressions of a country, of a national project, because it fosters knowledge, fosters empathy with others, strengthens a culture of peace, a culture of tolerance and dialogue between the various sectors of society. Cinema is strategic for any nation.”
He continued:
“It is the responsibility of public policy to protect and promote cultural production and artistic creation, as well as unrestricted access to them by the population, the right to access culture. It is essential to consider cinema as one of the industries with an impact on production and economic chains. The promotion of cinema should be considered an investment and not an expense.”
He immediately stated:
“In this context, we reiterate that the Federal Cinematography Law, which regulates cinematographic activity, requires an urgent review and update, since in recent years, and as we all know, the paradigm of cinematographic and audiovisual activity has been drastically transformed, impacting production and consumption models.”
Finally, he stressed that AMACC “expresses its solidarity with the Argentine film community, which is suffering the onslaught of government policies that call into question the viability of an emblematic and cutting-edge cinematography of Ibero-American cinema.”
