“Tótem. I recently watched this film. I was doing research for a project that we’re developing at my company, Honor Role, and… Wow. Lila Avilés, she does slice-of-life so flawlessly. You just feel like you’re living in someone’s family dynamic the whole time. And this little girl that she discovered. There’s something so amazing about watching the discovery of a young actress, a child actor who is just so tuned in to their instincts. I think that’s so impressive to see that as a kid. I feel like Dakota Fanning had that when she was a kid. And still has it. But to have it as a kid is just something extraordinary. You’re watching this little girl navigate the world and sort of start to understand grief and death. I recently worked with a Mexican filmmaker, Carlos López Estrada, and he was telling me, because our film has a lot to do with death, how, in Mexican culture, you start learning about death at a young age. It’s something you start to process in a way that is enlightened and sort of seeing it as a positive thing and just, like, the cycle of life. And it’s really beautiful to watch this little girl start to understand death and grief. And an illness, dealing with illness. So, this one’s definitely going in. She is one to watch.”
