Vivian, Vivian

by Ingrid Kamerling, Netherlands, 2016, 54′

Did I know you? Did I know everything about you? These are the questions the filmmaker asks herself when her sister Vivian, five years her junior, suddenly dies.
Is a person always themselves? And what does it mean to be authentic? Vivian was a young, beautiful woman with great potential, busy discovering the world around her. Like many of her peers, she was figuring out who she was and what she could contribute to the world.
This documentary, at once raw and poetic, sees the filmmaker attempt to get inside the head of her sister, who cut her own life short at the age of 24. The images slide from reality into fantasy, from subconscious into dreams and reflections, blending into a coming-of-age story about the search for identity.
Both sisters are taking on their own demons ñ but are their battles really that different? The lines that divide them gradually fade, merging into one amalgam being that the audience can no longer separate. In the end, all that remains is their connection. Vivian, Vivian is the intimate portrait of a close sisterly connection and an ode to vulnerability.