Between Sisters

A family secret surfaces between two Italian sisters

Between Sisters is a 2015 documentary that began as a personal project: Belgian-Italian director Manu Gerosa turns his camera on his own family, filming his mother and her older sister to preserve a memory he feared might soon be lost. What unfolds is far more than a portrait of old age.

What Between Sisters is about

Ornella and Teresa are two Italian sisters who have looked after each other their whole lives, sharing a bond shaped by love, routine, and unspoken responsibilities. As Teresa enters her final years and her memory begins to fade, Ornella resolves to confront her with a secret rooted in their shared childhood, one that has quietly defined the shape of their family for generations. Gerosa films the two women over the course of a year in Rovereto, in northern Italy, catching quarrels, laughter, and the slow, tender negotiation between silence and truth.

Director of Between Sisters

Manu Gerosa is an Italian documentary filmmaker who studied Contemporary History at the University of Bologna before working in Spain as a director and editor. Gerosa is Ornella's son, which places him at the centre of the family story he is telling. His personal stake in the material gives the film its particular intimacy: he appears briefly on screen and navigates the difficult position of being both filmmaker and family member. Between Sisters is produced by Clin d'oeil Films (Belgium) and Oneworld DocuMakers, with co-production support from the Doha Film Institute.

Awards and festival run

The film received strong recognition on the international festival circuit. It won the Best Film Award in the Long Documentary Competition and the Best Film Award by the Egyptian Film Critics Association at the Ismailia Documentary Film Festival, as well as the Best Film Award in the Orizzonti Vicini section at the prestigious Trento Film Festival. It also screened at a number of prominent festivals, including True/False Film Fest (USA) and Festival dei Popoli (Italy), reaching audiences across Europe, the Americas, and beyond.

Where to watch Between Sisters online

Between Sisters is available to stream on GuideDoc, the curated documentary platform. You can watch it alongside a wide selection of family documentaries on GuideDoc.

Similar documentaries to watch

If Between Sisters resonated with you, GuideDoc carries several other intimate family documentaries that explore comparable themes of memory, kinship, and unspoken histories. At the Feet of My Mother and Roger, My Brother both centre on close familial bonds filmed with a personal camera. Half of the World and Love of Fate offer further portraits of family life caught at a moment of change.