The Chambermaid 15

Former actor Lila Avilés’s highly acclaimed debut follows the kind, conscientious Eve (Gabriela Cartol), who works long hours as a maid at a luxurious hotel in Mexico City. A young single mother, Eve aspires to better things and hopes that her diligence will be rewarded with a coveted spot cleaning the Hotel Presidente’s penthouse floor. She enrols in the hotel’s adult education programme, but quickly discovers it’s not necessarily the most hard-working who get noticed for advancement.

Filmed with a striking eye for detail, Avilés’s camera accompanies Eve as she quietly enters one hotel room after another, cleaning up another stranger’s anonymous yet intimate messes. As she makes friends, engages in a flirtation with a window cleaner and continually works towards promotion, we become privy to her journey of self-discovery, her desires, doubts and dreams. Alongside dry humour and sly observations about class, privilege and exploitation in the hotel - a microcosm of the inequities of contemporary Mexican society -The Chambermaid also offers moments of beauty, tenderness and freedom.