Aslaug Holm is an awarded and acknowledged cinematographer and director. Partner/founder at Fenris Film since 1992. Directed 20+ documentaries, DOP at around 60. In 2007 she won Amandas Gullklapper for her work as cinematographer and director. Her latest film Brothers has travelled all over the world and won the prestigious main price at HotDocs Film Festival (2016) in Toronto. She was awarded the Norwegian Amanda for Best Direction with Brothers (2015), first time to a documentary-filmmaker in Amanda's history. In 2006 her film, The Rich Country, won Fipresci, the Film critic's prize at Tromsø International Film Festival.

 

As one of Norway's most acknowledged documentarists, Aslaug Holm was cinematographer and editor on Cool and Crazy (2001), which set box office record for documentaries in Norway. The film won several prizes around the world, amongst; Amanda for Best movie and Best documentary. 

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The documentary BROTHERS is filmed by director Aslaug Holm, the boy`s mother, over an eight year period. This is her attempt to capture their childhood and brotherhood, and their discovery of life, whilst looking back at her own family history.

 

"I had this picture in my mind from the very beginning. The boat passing in the ocean. It was a memory from my childhood, and it inspired me both as a mother and a cinematographer. Andrej Tarkovskij, the great russian director, once said: ”An artist is like a ferryman who connects past with the future.”, and these words gave med the visual approach to Brothers, a personal film about my two sons childhood and upgrowing. I had this longing for making something beautiful and grasp the true moments. Capturing the greatness in ordinary life. And I  wanted to tell about a beginning. When everything is new and fresh, and life is waiting for you. This feeling you only have when you are young, that everything is possible.

 

When Lukas, the youngest brother, was five, he was so wise and philosophical. He asked a lot of questions. He could say: Mum, what happens to my dreams when I’m dead, are they still alive? On the contrary, Markus, the oldest one, was so present in life, he was so brave and strong. He just loved to challenge himself and his little brother. So I thought it was a wonderful idea to make a film about who we are straight from the beginning, and why we become the person we end up to be. In brotherhood you find what life is about: Love, competition, hope. Everything starts with two persons, and every change starts in this close perspective.

 

In Brothers there are two timelines: the future and the past. The boys represent the future, and my family and I represent the past. I switch between these two perspectives throughout the whole film. The boat, which is passing through the ocean with my two sons in different ages, is a motif. I edited these scenes with archival footage of my fishing family residing in the western coast of Norway, and I chose to use 16mm Film stocks, because I wanted a nostalgic look.

 

The camera has been a part of our life and of our family in so many years, and in my film there are scenes that are personal and belong to the privacy, but at the same time they are universal because people recognize their own life in them."

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