Wikipedia

Twin Sisters (2013 film)

Twin Sisters is a 2013 documentary film directed by Mona Friis Bertheussen and produced by Moment Film. The film won the Audience Award at the 2013 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.[3] Twin Sisters won ten other awards and has been broadcast by more than 30 television channels, reaching millions worldwide.

Twin Sisters
Film poster
NorwegianTvillingsøstrene
Directed byMona Friis Bertheussen
Produced byMona Friis Bertheussen
StarringMia Hansen
Alexandra Hauglum
Wenche Hauglum
Sigmund Hauglum
Angela Hansen
Andy Hansen
CinematographyHallgrim Haug
Edited byErik Andersson
Mona Friis Bertheussen [2]
Production
company
Moment Film[2]
Release date
  • November 21, 2013 (2013-11-21) (IDFA)[1]
Running time
58 minutes
CountryNorway
LanguagesEnglish
Norwegian

Synopsis edit

The Movie starts in 2003 when someone finds two young babies in a cardboard box in a southern Chinese village. This person eventually takes them to an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan Province, China, [4] and two families individually adopted them. One of them (Alexandra Hauglum) went to live in the small village of Fresvik, Norway, surrounded by high mountains and deep fjords. The other sister (Mia Hansen) went to Sacramento, California, "a much bigger city in northern California". The adoptive parents had no idea their new daughter had a twin, but through a series of inexplicable incidents, the girls were back together.

The film tells the story of the twin sisters until they reunited for the second time in person, which happened when they were eight years old, at Alexandra's home in Norway.

Production and filming edit

The film took approximately four years to make. The director Mona Friis Bertheussen and cinematographer Hallgrim Haug[5] traveled back and forth between Fresvik and Sacramento to document the contrasts and similarities between the girls’ lives. The visits led up to the girls’ first reunion in Norway, which became the "highlight "of the documentary.

The film received its major funding from the Norwegian Film Institute, Creative Europe, the Norwegian television channel TV2, and Swedish television channel SVT. The film also received funding from Fond for Lyd og Bilde, Fritt Ord, Arts Council Norway, and Vest Norsk Filmsenter. It was pitched at the 2010 Sheffield Doc/Fest MeetMarket.

Reception edit

In 2014, "Norway's TV2 reported that the film was its most watched documentary in more than four years".[6] The New York Times reported that "Everything about the Norwegian film 'Twin Sisters' seems too good to be true".[7] Mia and Alexandra were invited to be interviewed on the popular Scandinavian talk show, Skavlan.

In the United States, acclaim for the film came through the PBS series Independent Lens which began airing Twin Sisters in October 2014.[8]

Awards edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Idfa program guide 2013". Issuu. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Twin Sisters", IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) Archived 2016-01-01 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Bertheussen, Mona Friis. "Tvillingsøstrene". IMDB, Moment Films.
  4. ^ "From California to Norway, twins have an unmistakable bond : Documentary chronicles the unlikely story of 11-year-old adopted girls, who were separated by the system in China.", The Sacramento Bee newspaper, October 15, 2014
  5. ^ HAL Films website
  6. ^ "«Tvillingsøstrene» Mye tyder på at den TV 2-sendte dokumentaren om de to biologiske tvillingjentene som bor på hver sin kant av kloden kan bli den mest sette norske filmen noensinne", TV2 Norway, November 20, 2014 (Norwegian)
  7. ^ Hale, Mike, "Twins, Raised in Different Worlds : ‘Twin Sisters’ From China Stay in Touch", The New York Times, October 19, 2014
  8. ^ "Twin Sisters", PBS Independent Lens website.
  9. ^ Moment Film website

External links edit

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