What more could you wish for? Celebrating your national premiere in the JEF festival (Antwerp, Bruges and several more cities in Belgium) and taking home the ECFA Award straight away?! This happened to BINTI, the feature debut of Belgian director Frederike Migom and her young main actors Bebel Tshiani Baloji and Mo Bakker.
12-year-old Binti dreams of making a name for herself as a vlogger. But when they risk being deported as sans papiers, she and her father run away from a police raid. Binti meets Elias and they become friends. While Binti uses her vlog to help Elias with his Save the Okapi Club, she hatches the perfect plan: if her dad marries Elias’s single mum, they could all stay in Belgium.
“BINTI is a very contemporary film, not only because of the ‘vlogger’ element, but also because of the issue of sans papiers. With energy and dedication you can influence the world as a child. This dramatic element is linked to a positive message. The acting in this film is superb – the joy of playing sparkles all over the screen,” say ECFA Jury members Dorothée van den Berghe (film director), Cinekid director Floor Van Spaendonck and Aneta Ozorek of the KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival.
You’ll read all about BINTI in the interview with Frederike Migom in the upcoming ECFA Journal.