The BBC has acquired Families Like Ours, the debut TV drama series from Oscar-winning director Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round).
Premiering at the Venice Film Festival last year, the series imagines a near future where rising sea levels force Denmark to evacuate the entire population of the country, turning their six million citizens into refugees, forced to seek shelter in whichever countries will have them. The seven-part series follows the fate of individual families as they struggle to find a home outside their native land.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Vinterberg said he strived to avoid “disaster film clichés” to focus on the human drama of climate change and mass migration, creating “a dystopia in slow motion.”
Vinterberg said he was initially inspired to write the series after seeing the response to Syrian refugees coming to Europe in the wake of the country’s civil war and wondering “what would happen if we were the refugees, if we would have to say goodbye to everything we love?”
The BBC picked up Families Like Ours for BBC Four and the BBC iPlayer from StudioCanal, which is handling international sales on the project. Sue Deeks, head of BBC Programme Acquisition, called the series “a beautifully constructed, thought-provoking drama about what happens when people are confronted by the inconceivable, and forced to make seemingly impossible choices.”
Vinterberg and Bo Hr. Hansen (Department Q: Journal 64) co-wrote the series, which features an ensemble cast including Amaryllis August, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Thomas Bo Larsen, David Dencik, and Paprika Steen. The show was filmed on location in Denmark, Sweden, France, Romania and the Czech Republic and produced by Zentropa Entertainments for TV 2 Denmark, StudioCanal and Canal+.
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