A touching farewell Wendy Holdener cries for her dead brother in SRF documentary
The SRF documentary about Wendy Holdener and her late brother Kevin, who suffered from cancer and died during filming, gets under your skin.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Wendy Holdener, successful Swiss ski racer with several world championship titles, loses her brother Kevin to cancer in February 2024.
- An SRF documentary shows the close relationship between the siblings.
- Kevin supported Wendy Holdener in her career as her manager.
- Despite his cancer, Kevin Holdener lived life to the full when he could. He documented his adventures with his camera.
- Kevin Holdener dies during the filming of the documentary.
- Wendy Holdener decided to complete the film after Kevin's death in order to share his tireless will to live with others.
"If the pneumonia is not stabilized, I will die," says Kevin Holdener in one of the first scenes of the film. The SRF documentary "Wendy Holdener and her brother Kevin - Connected beyond death" is a moving story about loss, the will to live and sibling love.
In this film, Wendy Holdener, one of the best slalom skiers in the world, provides an insight into her life that goes far beyond skiing - her close bond with her brother Kevin. Since childhood, Holdener, now 31, and her brother Kevin, three years her senior, have shared a passion for skiing.
Both dreamed of a career, but Kevin's diagnosis of a rare and particularly complex type of cancer abruptly ended his own path in the ski circuit at the age of 20. Kevin then decided to invest all his energy in Wendy Holdener's success.
"He went through life for three people at the same time"
"He enabled me to concentrate fully on my goals," the ski racer reports in the film. Despite his illness, which never left him in stable health for more than two consecutive years, he became her manager, her biggest supporter and also one of her harshest critics. "He always said he was the better skier, but I was the better racer," she remembers with a smile.
At the end of 2023, the sad certainty that Kevin had a particularly severe relapse. He decides to capture his bond with his sister in a movie. He dies during filming. Wendy Holdener decides to complete the project anyway - as a symbol of the memory of her brother and the path they had taken together.
The result is a moving portrait of their extraordinary sibling relationship, which also features their parents and Carmen Holdener, Kevin's widow. "I want people to know that this is what he wanted," explains Wendy Holdener in the documentary. "He wanted to show the world how positive he remained despite his illness. He sometimes went through life for three people at once."
Tribute to the brother
The film therefore not only shows Kevin Holdener's last journey, but also many impressions of his numerous smaller and larger trips in the 13 years since his diagnosis. With a selfie stick in his hand, he shot 360-degree videos of his adventures in the most diverse places in the world: in the desert, on mountain peaks, while diving.
His zest for life is clearly noticeable. But the hospital stays that were part of his life are also documented time and again. For Wendy Holdener, the film also shows her brother's tireless will to survive and the way he perceived his life despite, or perhaps because of, his illness.
The seriously ill Kevin Holdener himself said a few months before his death: "I'm basically a positive person. But after twelve years, it's hard for me." He finally lost his battle with cancer on February 22, 2024 - just a few hours after marrying his girlfriend Carmen in hospital.
Wedding celebration in hospital
The scenes in which friends and family come together to celebrate this beautiful moment for the couple and say goodbye at the same time are touching.
The film also follows Wendy Holdener's recovery. Months after her brother's death, she recounts a moment on the train when she felt happiness again for the first time while listening to music: "When I realized this, I cried because I wished that Kevin could feel this happiness too. I especially missed him at that moment."
When asked whether skiing is still as important to her as it used to be, she answers on the verge of tears: "Depending, maybe even more important again. Because I no longer have Kevin. Now I have to do something with my time. I know he would enjoy it."
Coming to terms with death
In the end, the film is more than just a portrait of the loss of a loved one. It leaves us with the feeling that it is important for younger people to come to terms with death - whether their own or that of someone close to them. Because, as Wendy Holdener says: "You learn a lot about life when something like this happens." Then she adds: "But I could have done without it."
The documentary can be seen on Thursday, 24.10.2024, at 20:10 on SRF 1.
