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.
