Cinema Releases - The Chambermaid

Eve is a conscientious hotel chambermaid. Punctual and enterprising, paying close attention to the details, she hopes her impeccable professionalism will bring her promotion to the Hotel Presidente’s exclusive penthouse floor. Long, laborious shifts prevent Eve from caring for her child while she helps guests with their own children. Avilés records her day-to-day activities, from the detail of ensuring rooms are immaculately presented each morning to enrolling in the hotel’s adult education programme, which will help her chances of promotion. When things don’t result as planned, Eve transforms her lonely explorations and newfound courage into the necessary strength to face a life outside the glimmering tower.

Avilés’ impressive debut profits from a spare script and nuanced direction, while Gabriela Cartol’s breakout performance brings charisma and warmth to Eve. With its dry humour and sly observations about class, privilege and exploitation, The Chambermaid is a confident, compelling and deeply resonant piece of filmmaking.

World Premiere Toronto International Film Festival 2018 – Discovery

European Premiere San Sebastian International Film festival 2018 - New Directors Competition

Mexico's International Film Oscar entry
Winner Marrakech International Film Festival - Prix du Jury
Winner Palm Springs International Film Festival - Cine Latino Award
Winner Portland International Film festival - Audience Award

Length 102 min
Original language Spanish

Lila Avilés studied Direction and Performing Arts with some of the leading theatrical figures in México such as Martin Acosta, Sandra Felix and Juliana Faesler. She also studied film writing with Beatriz Novaro and Paula Marcovich. After her beginnings as a theater actress she moved into directing. Her work as a director includes Gardenia Club, Microdermoabrasión (National Theater Award), Antígona and The Chambermaid – that would become the inspiration for her first feature film. She has also directed the operas Cossi Fan Tutte and Alcina by Mozart and Händel respectively. Lila’s latest play as a producer and actress, Nothing and Everything by Janne Teller, opened in January 2018 at the UNAM theater in Mexico City.

2018 THE CHAMBERMAID (La Camarista)

2017 NENA (documentary)

2016 DEJAVU (short)

★★★★★

'This quiet profile of Mexico's working class is close to perfect.'

Tim Robey, The Daily Telegraph

★★★★★

The Chambermaid is every bit as “cinematic” as any Fast & Furious flick. No trace of the literary or theatrical remains in Avilés’s long takes and snatched, blank dialogue. The picture wraps a whole world around us. A perfect, cinematic sketch of a working life’

Donald Clarke, The Irish Times

★★★★
Film of the Week -' Lila Avilés is the Mexican actor-turned-director who makes a terrifically assured feature debut with The Chambermaid: an eerily atmospheric, poignant, disquieting movie about 21st-century luxury and the invisible servant class required to maintain it. It is a film to put alongside Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, in that it’s about the emotional cost of submission.'

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

★★★★ 'She doesn’t rescue anyone and she isn’t rescued. How refreshing....wry, delicately austere debut.'

Charlotte O'Sullivan, The Standard

Film of the Week - ‘Debut director Lila Avilés and lead actress Gabriela Cartol have crafted a subtle and compelling story about a young hotel worker, with wry humour and a keen understanding of exploitative labour economics. Lucrecia Martel’s regular sound designer Guido Berenblum creates a sonic poetry to accompany the visuals. Cartol is hugely impressive as the enterprising and unassuming Eve, with her keen smile and calm demeanour.’

Maria Delgado, Sight & Sound

★★★★

‘A poignant portrait of a have not, sensitively played by Cartol as a woman slowly sinking into non-existence.’ Ian Freer,

EMPIRE magazine

★★★★

‘Offering more questions than answers…but strong world-building and beautifully drawn characters’

Owen Richards,The i

‘A cool, calm and collected film about a subject often spoken about loudly and angrily.’ A young hotel maid is the captivating subject of Mexican filmmaker Lila Avilés’ bone-dry social satire.’

LITTLE WHITE LIES

★★★★

'Due to the mesmerising ways of Eve –its gentle and meticulous approach in shooting the daily drudge makes it a weirdly relaxing and fulfilling cinema experience'

Dan Carrier, Camen New Journal

Mark KERMODE BBC SOUNDS

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0006v91

The Chambermaid is a great analogy for modern Mexican and Latin American society – showcasing the severe disparity between the leisurely lifestyles of the affluent guests and the poor staff working ungodly hours to support and provide basic necessities for their families.

Rocio Cadena, SOUNDS & COLOURS

Read Interview with Lila Aviles

Aurelie Knecht,  SOUNDS & COLOURS

'Lila Avilés’s modest and miraculous first feature finds pathos and a hint of magic in the routines of a young hotel worker.'

...Quietly stunning...it is a work of closely observed workplace realism, but at times it achieves the strangeness and intensity of science fiction.'  Even when nothing much is happening, there is the lurking sense that anything might.'

"The Chambermaid brims with empathy and life."

Robert Abele, The Los Angeles Times