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. Twin Sisters went on to win 10 other awards and has been broadcast by more than thirty television channels reaching millions of people 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 [1]
Production
company
Moment Film[1]
Release date
  • November 21, 2013 (2013-11-21) (IDFA)[2]
Running time
58 minutes
CountryNorway
LanguageEnglish
Norwegian

Synopsis

In 2003, two baby girls were found in a cardboard box in a southern Chinese village. They were taken to an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan Province, China [3] and were individually adopted by two families. One of them (Alexandra Hauglum) went to live in the small village of Freskvik, 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 – the girls’ sisterhood was meant to be kept a secret – but destiny had other plans. Through a series of inexplicable incidents, the girls are drawn back together and truth has its day.

The film tells the story of the twin sisters up to the time they are reunited for the second time in person, when they are 8 years old at Alexandra's home in Norway.

Production and filming

The film took approximately four years to make. The award-winning director Mona Friis Bertheussen and award-winning cinematographer Hallgrim Haug [4] travelled 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 major 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 several other sources, including 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

In 2014, Norway's TV2 reported that the film was its most watched documentary in more than four years.[5] The film's popularity was evident on several media channels, including the New York Times reporting that “Everything about the Norwegian film 'Twin Sisters' seems too good to be true ...” [6] Mia and Alexandra were invited to be interviewed on the popular Scandinavian talk show, Skavlan.

In the United States, awareness of and acclaim for the film came through the PBS series Independent Lens which began airing Twin Sisters in October 2014.[7]

Awards

References
  1. "Twin Sisters", IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)
  2. "Idfa program guide 2013". Issuu. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  3. "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
  4. HAL Films website
  5. "«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)
  6. Hale, Mike, "Twins, Raised in Different Worlds : ‘Twin Sisters’ From China Stay in Touch", The New York Times, October 19, 2014
  7. "Twin Sisters", PBS Independent Lens website.
  8. Moment Film website
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