“I wanted it since Festen”

TV MAGAZINE. – How was this series born?
Thomas VINTERBERG – Seven years ago. Before Covid-19. Before Brexit. Before the war in Ukraine. Before the recent forecasts on the consequences of climate change. I was staying in Paris where you meet a lot of foreigners like in most metropolises. Hordes of tourists but also people whose heaviness, sadness, loneliness, feeling of abandonment, and the look of Parisians who are not always happy to have them there, we immediately sense. I myself was in this foreign city, on a Sunday, and I realized that I missed my wife, my children and that, to a lesser extent, I myself no longer really knew why I was there and if it was really worth it. The idea was then born, powerful, dramatic, of reversing the situations, namely placing the haves that we are in the situation of those deprived of everything. And with it this question: what would our reaction be if everything we think we have acquired, if everything we love, was suddenly taken away from us?

How was she received?
It became an obsession. Like the person you have just met, who you think is ideal and whom you absolutely want to introduce to your friends. Very quickly I talked about it. People, perhaps to be expected, didn’t like it. Some found that the postulate did not hold up. Others that it was too experimental. But Canal+ was won over. I believe that from the outset, they grasped the scope of the story. I thank them for that.

Why a series rather than a film?
The content generated the form. The content required a long time, seriousness, a certain solemnity. He also asked that we intrude into people’s privacy through a succession of episodes, so as to be more meaningful. I found it attractive. This is why we turned to channels rather than platforms. The series was the right format for this particular story. We still had to find the right people and the right time. Today, when all film directors are making television series and after greatness, we are perhaps already approaching the decadence of a genre which was so new to us just a few years ago, I may -to be told that it was the right time. To tell the truth, I’ve wanted it since The party.

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“Families Like Ours”, on Canal+, the apocalypse according to Thomas Vinterberg

“The idea was to choose privileged people and observe their behavior when the removal of these privileges was announced”

Thomas Vinterberg

Who are these “families like ours”?
This series takes place in the future but had to be perfectly credible, both in terms of its staging and in terms of the choice of characters and their trajectories. The idea was to choose privileged people and observe their behavior when the removal of these privileges was announced. People who live on streets like mine or yours. People who lead lives like mine or yours. People who drive cars like mine or yours. Neighbors, cousins, a brother, a sister, friends… Bankers, doctors, entrepreneurs, senior civil servants, architects, lawyers…

What is it about stories of chaos that appeals to you so much?
I like to shake up the established order, kick anthills, take on the role of the elephant in the china shop. I like to observe the interactions between the individual and the group. Even more, I like it when the group responds to interactions in a chaotic way. This is one of my favorite patterns. It allows you to take all risks, to play with all intellectual theories, with all social conventions, with all systems and with all modes of thought. Like my films, the series asks the question of the group, our reactions, our individual and collective behaviors and solidarity.

The question of the group is recurrent in your filmography…
I grew up in a hippie community, between intellectual theories, naturism and liters of beer. What I learned from it was their sense of solidarity. This type of community was very new. This had never been experienced before. It was not at all certain that this way of life would be sustainable. They were taking a risk. But they took it together. So yes, I remained very attached to this risk/being together combination. All my films are built around this.

In terms of writing, how do we go from the 2 hour format – the time of a film – to that of 7 hours – that of this series?
Having only ever written and directed cinema films, writing a series was necessarily quite new to me. I was not alone. Fortunately. Rather, I wrote in one go before going back and drawing out the common threads of each trajectory and each character. It remained to compose and cut everything into seven 52-minute episodes. But it happened quite naturally. I think that in the end, I didn’t change much in my work habits.

As for the environmental and societal aspect. Have you surrounded yourself with experts? Did you take any advice?
Yes. We asked them if our scenario was credible. They told us it wasn’t. The disappearance of an entire country underwater and the migration of its entire population in such a short period of time is not possible. And it doesn’t matter, that’s not what we were trying to demonstrate. Families Like Ours is neither an apocalyptic series nor a disaster series. Besides, there is no scourge to fight. It is a broad-spectrum psychological drama that questions the audience about a given situation. The end of a world undoubtedly. That of a West falling into decay, of bankrupt states and the consequence of ever more restrictive immigration policies. It is a universal dystopia that questions our reactions, our choices, our behavior, in short, humanity.

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Years and Years: les messagers de l’Apocalypse

“I am convinced that if empathy disappears at the heart of the crisis, it returns as soon as the crisis subsides”

Thomas Vinterberg

Immigration laws are strengthening in most Western countries, including Denmark…
We’ve done quite a bit of research on this. How do you obtain a visa in France? How does Europe manage migratory flows? How do different governments take care of refugees, in terms of reception, housing and support? What is the process for applying for and obtaining Romanian, French and British citizenship? It was endless. But we needed that to be credible, as I said above.

The vision you give of all this seems quite pessimistic. How do you see the future of humanity?
Quite positively I think. Families Like Ours stages great dramas but also conveys great hopes. I am convinced that if empathy disappears in the heart of the crisis, it returns as soon as the crisis subsides. It’s a question of human nature. We are sociable, collaborative and interactive animals. As for the future of the planet, I have no scientific reason to be optimistic but I am nevertheless, convinced here too that humanity has the capacity to reinvent itself, to adapt and to cooperate with future climatic and environmental degradation. Even if I am sometimes shocked by our inaction. Even among young people who want to revolutionize our relationship with the world but continue to consume and take planes… Which generates a great feeling of inadequacy. And insufficiency necessarily leads to ignorance.

The casting is impeccable. We also find a certain number of actors from your previous films there. Is this knowingly?
I like to write for people I know well. I know exactly where I can take them, how I can push them and how they themselves will react. Working with strangers induces a somewhat polite distance which reduces the field of possibilities. Finding the same people breaks down the barriers and allows us to explore ever further the palettes of emotions, intonations, and play. But we also have new faces including the two young heroes on whom the entire series is built. . It took a while to find them. I can only rejoice that the others have already been there.

Among the actors is your wife, in the role of Luka’s partner, the architect, good job, good father. Is it a joy to work with her?
She is my partner, my support, my reader, my prop. She plays an important role in the series. She is also a pastor. Four years ago, when she read it, she cried. Then she told me that I was obviously starting to become depressed. Finally she asked me to rework the story a little so as to include the hope of reunion and better tomorrows. Introducing a note of hope into a story is not as simple as pressing a button in a writing room. It is a long-term job that requires very particular attention and very precise dosage. But I think that without this hope, this series would ultimately never have seen the light of day.

What do you hope viewers take away from this series?
My films do not take sides and never transmit a message. I am always very careful to limit them to the field of human and existential experience lived in a particular context.