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Al Fondo a la Derecha
By cleaning the toilets of the hottest Mexican club Estela witnesses the arrogance of the very rich.
Piso 14 is the trendiest club in Mexico City reserved for upper class teenagers like Lena (18), who goes there to party with her friends like there is no tomorrow. Inside the women's bathroom Lena’s path will cross with Estela’s (19), who sneaks out of her home to work there as a cleaning lady, trying to earn enough tips to emancipate from the Jehovah's Witness organization that her father belongs to. She risks getting caught, being expelled from the congregation and alienated by her family. Leading a double life isn’t easy, fitting in isn’t either, so she will need to learn the codes of this new universe that fascinates her. As Estela begins to take more risks, one night she secretly transforms, imitating the girls she attends in an urge to belong somewhere, as Lena loses herself in an attempt to rebel from the status quo of her society. Sparks of light in the dark, popular songs booming, tequila shots, gossip and the constant toilet flush as an announcement of the end of a world.
As a teenager I spent my weekends trying to enter clubs like Piso 14. Once inside, I felt so insecure that I hid in the women's bathroom, where I was not able to perceive how a girl my own age spent her nights cleaning the toilets. Estela’s job is meant to be invisible, allowing her to witness the most intimate moments of the ultra rich, their follies, their despair and their loneliness, which helps her realise her own suffocating world: a coercive religious organisation that alienates her thoughts. Like me, Estela tries to exit her bubble, however she escapes to the society I was running away from. Inside the bathroom all barriers seem to blend, here for a moment we are all the same, nevertheless Estela is not allowed to use the toilets she cleans for her clients. Stratification in México creates an impassable class border that won't allow her to change her status, leaving her to wander from one confinement to another, with no other way out than to find an uncertain exit door.
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