The Oscar-winning director’s debut series which was shot over nearly a full year with over 40 actors and 2,500 extras, is being edited into seven episodes of 50 minutes, instead of six episodes, as planned earlier, according to Zentropa.
“We have worked on Families Like Ours for more than four years, and it feels amazing to be here now, finalising the series,” said producers Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Kasper Dissing, credited for Vinterberg’s smash hit Another Round, crowned best international film at the Academy Awards 2021.
Described by Zentropa as the company’s “biggest series to date”, the epic family drama co-written by Vinterberg with Bo Hr. Hansen was shot for nearly a whole year across Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Romania, and France. The resulting 100 hours of filmed material is currently being edited into approximately six hours of TV drama.
The epic family drama tells of a nation forced to say goodbye to their homeland. According to Zentropa, the story is “a riveting tale of the pain of farewells and a testimony to the unyielding will of human beings to survive, hope and love”.
The dystopian drama is set during a summer in Denmark - when climate change catches up dramatically and rising water levels force the population to be evacuated, including the main characters - the two young students, Laura (Amaryllis August) and Elias (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt), Laura’s divorced parents-her dad, the successful architect Jacob (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), and her mother, the clinically stressed science journalist Fanny (Paprika Steen).
There is also Jacob’s new wife Amalie (Helene Reingaard Neumann), Amalie’s brother Nikolaj (Esben Smed) and his husband Henrik (Magnus Millang), Henrik’s unruly brother Peter (David Dencik), Fanny’s brother Holger (Thomas Bo Larsen) as well as the boy Lucas (Max Kaysen Høyrup) and his mother Christel (Asta Kamma August), who cross paths with the family.
Families Like Ours is being produced by Nordisk Film’s partly-owned Zentropa, in co-production with Studiocanal, Canal+ & TV 2 Denmark, with ARD Degeto, NRK, TV4, Zentropa Sweden, Film i Väst, Sirena Film in the Czech Republic, Ginger Pictures in Belgium, and Saga Film in Romania.
The series fully directed by Vinterberg received support from the Danish Film Institute’s Public Service Fund, Creative Europe MEDIA Programme, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the Czech Film Fund, and BNP Paribas Fortis Film Finance. Rights were also pre-bought by CANAL+ Poland and Luxembourg-based M7.
The series is being sold internationally by Paris-based Studiocanal.
