Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, October 20: TWIN SISTERS
Mona Friis Bertheussen made its debut at IDFA last year, where it picked up an audience award. It’s gone on to screen at Göteborg, Documentary Edge, DocPoint, ZagrebDox, DocAviv, and Planete+ Doc, among others.
Bertheussen’s endearing if somewhat slight midlength tells the story of Alexandra and Mia, Chinese girls who were adopted by separate sets of parents – one in a small village in Norway, the other in suburban Sacramento – who likely would never have known they even had a sister, much less an identical twin, if it weren’t for an unlikely pair of near-matching red gingham dresses.Their new adoptive parents each coincidentally dressed them in the latter, prompting a conversation, during which they noticed that their daughters looked remarkably similar, beginning a sisterly relationship that has lasted for a decade, albeit at a distance. Beyond revealing this background, the film focuses on the girls in the present, as Mia and her parents visit Alexandra in the tiny village of Fresvik – the second time the sisters have been able to be together since being separated. The result is compelling – while twins are inherently fascinating, their particular circumstances of cultural displacement, vastly different home environments, and the knowledge of one another’s existence bring a different texture to the striking similarities they share, despite distance and language barriers.
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