Totem
Synopsis
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
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.
Filmography
- The Judgement 2021
- De Droevige Kampioen (TV serie) 2021
- Ga niet naar zee (short) 2018
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