Vlam
Debut film by Daphne Lucker about a complex and destructive mother-daughter relationship.
Olivia (Sophie Lindner) and her mother Selma (Thekla Reuten) have an intense relationship. To the outside world, Selma appears to be an exemplary mother, but in reality she puts herself first and foremost. For Olivia, her mother’s behaviour is the norm – she doesn’t know any better and learns to see herself as the problem. This changes when Olivia is placed out of home after a violent event and ends up in an emergency shelter. Gradually, this new living situation tilts Olivia’s perspective. Every time she goes home, she sees how her mother is not an average parent, but a destructive influence on her – like a friend you’d rather not have. Olivia faces an impossible choice: will she let herself be swallowed up, or will she finally break free from her mother?
In Vlam, director Daphne Lucker shows a parent-child relationship in which the mental burden lies with the child. She herself experienced this, albeit in a different way than Olivia, when her mother started showing signs of dementia at a young age. Screenwriter Rosita Wolkers lived in a shelter for some time as a teenager and drew on her own experiences with youth care for this film. That realism was carried through into the casting, which mostly used non-professional actors who brought their own experience.