Thomas Vinterberg: “No, the disaster of Families Like Ours is not realistic”

Denmark evacuated in the near future by rising waters? The director admits to us that there is nothing scientific about it. But that is not the question: “We above all wanted to construct a sociological experiment”.

This is the shock series of the beginning of the year. Launched this Monday on Canal +, Families Like Ours will tell over the course of 7 episodes the fate of families turned upside down by a mass exodus. As rising waters threaten, the Danish government decides to evacuate its population. Here are 6 million climate refugees, forced to rebuild their lives in the rest of Europe. A story that Thomas Vinterbergacclaimed director of Drunk (2020), Festen (1998) or The Hunt (2012), imagined 7 years ago, when he lived in Paris.

“At the time, the world was very different. There had not yet been the pandemic, nor the war in Ukraine” confides the filmmaker, interviewed by Première. “I started talking about this idea around me, to those close to me, a bit like introducing your new fiancée to your family. But no one was convinced. Many told me that it was driven by the hair, a little crazy Seven years later, I'm told that the series is in tune with the times…” laughs Vinterberg, who says that the concept came to him when he felt a certain loneliness in the City of Lights: “I love coming to Paris, but I'm not the only one and that's a bit of the problem with this city, which welcomes so many foreign visitors every day. This influx puts the city under constant pressure and that's a bit what I felt when I went to my little local café. I went there every day, for months, and they never recognized me (laughs). This doesn't really encourage dialogue. I felt isolated in this foreign city. I missed my family. It is this emotion that fueled the creation of the series. The idea that we take the little everyday things for granted. But what happens when all that is taken away from us? What would it be like if we, and not everyone else in the rest of the world, lost everything we have? The experience of the series is thus to deprive privileged people of their privileges, to see how they behave.

The director, who made his very first series here, therefore uses the climate crisis as the starting point for general chaos. The rising waters are not an end in themselves in the series, only a means to better observe people: “We spoke to lots of experts about what could happen climate-wise, about possible scenarios for Denmark. And we were told that no, it wasn’t really realistic.” having fun Thomas Vinterbergwho, in any case, did not want to stage a clairvoyant dystopia, but ratherôt “a sociological experiment, in which we study human behavior faced with existential choices, in the most realistic way possible. Our real focus was to determine how States would react to this influx of refugees. What statuses exist in France, in Romania? It is especially on this aspect that we wanted to be credible. This is also why we chose not to make a disaster series, by showing a huge wave which would engulf Copenhagen. knows that, in any case, if it were to happen one day, if the rising waters were to submerge Denmark, the country would have already been evacuated a long time ago, in an orderly and calm manner. This is what we show.

The idea of ​​the series is therefore not to predict the future by sounding any alarm bells. “My goal is not to shock people. I never intend to transmit a message through my works. You should not try to see it as taking a political position, even implicitly” insists Thomas Vinterberg. And the director admits that with each new project, he appreciates “embrace chaos, disconcert and at the same time celebrate solidarity. I like to put the individual in perspective in relation to the group and I always find it more exciting when the group lives in a chaotic way. It's true that it's quite recurring in my filmography. I grew up in the 1970s in a hippie community where there was a great sense of solidarity. They did things together. Every time, I like to put my characters together. the test of the solidarity. How would you react to such a crisis?

Ultimately, for Thomas Vinterbergit is especially important not to see in Families Like Ours a dark vision of today's world. The director assures not “think pessimistically about the future of humanity. On the contrary. Certainly, a certain empathy tends to disappear in times of crisis and leaves room for everyone for themselves. But when the crisis subsides, I believe empathy returns naturally. It is rooted in human nature. We remain social creatures. And that's what really gives me hope. Now, the series also talks about the climate crisis and the recent scientific evidence doesn't really give reason for optimism. We have difficulty accepting the efforts to be made. Everyone jumped on a plane as soon as the pandemic ended. That being said, here again, I believe that humanity has this capacity to reinvent itself, to adapt, when its back is against the wall… That is the hope, I believe.“

Families Like Ours, in 7 episodes, to be seen every Monday on Canal +.