My Brother Tom

My Brother Tom is the feature début by Rotheroe, who has already received several prizes as a documentary-maker. Fascinated by the power and tenderness of the love story that was presented to him, and by the extremities and obsessions it comprised, he took on this project. It is the story of two teenagers, Tom and Jessica. When they meet, Jessica becomes both worried and intrigued by Tom’s dark side. The forests are his holy domain; he hides there from misery and oppression at home. He and Jessica form a powerful bond, in which no compromise is possible, but that will eventually lead to their demise. The tragedy of a bond that cannot survive because one can change and the other can’t.Rotheroe wanted to approach the intensity and intimacy of the relationship between Tom and Jessica as closely as he could in the style of his film: raw, emotional and confrontational. It is a film, he considers, that could only be filmed in close-ups: the camera has to become part of the action, close to the skin of the characters. That is why he chose the flexibility of a digital handcamera (held by Robby Müller, the Dutch veteran who previously worked with Wim Wenders and Lars von Trier), making it possible to improvise and to shoot entire scenes, giving the actors the maximum freedom of movement.