Totem

Sander Burger

5-12 School 2022 90 min Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg

synopsis
Critics & Awards
Director

Synopsis

A moving epic that travels between the pain of immigration and the great dreams of childhood

Passionate swimmer Ama and her best friend Thijs spend their free time practicing for the upcoming championships. Ama’s parents, asylum seekers from Senegal who have been staying in the Netherlands illegally since their application was not processed. When her mother and brother are picked up, Ama roams Rotterdam looking for her father. It is on this journey that her totem animal, a huge porcupine, reveals itself.Carried by its young actress, at times candid and at others unfailingly determined, Totem tells us in clear terms the incredibly tortuous path of asylum seekers in Europe. The emergence of fantasy in the film also paints a beautiful portrait of the aspirations that come with the beginning of adolescence.

Cast/Avec

Amani-Jean Philippe
Ole van Hoogdalem
Lies Visschedijk
Emmanuel Ohene Boafo
Céline Camara
Kenneth Herdigein
Iliass Ojja

Screenplay

Bastiaan Tichler
Sander Burger

Cinematographer

Sal Kroonenberg

Sound

Christoph Köpf
Jan Schermer
Aaron Baustert

Music

Amaury Laurent Bernier

Production

Volya Films

Public Award, Cinékid, 2022, nl

Sander Burger

Sander Burger was born in Korhogo, Ivory Coast, in 1975 and grew up in Indonesia and Iraq before completing his school in the Netherlands. He studied production at the Nederlandse Film en Televisie Academie.

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