Thomas Vinterberg on Climate Change Miniseries ‘Families Like Ours’

It’s no coincidence that “Families Like Ours,” the climate change disaster drama miniseries in which Denmark literally closes due to flooding, is premiering in Venice, a city famously battling its own existential crisis over rising sea levels. 

“All the water here made it the obvious choice,” says Thomas Vinterberg, the Danish director for whom “Families Like Ours marks his first TV series (and first project since his acclaimed Oscar-winning feature “Another Round.”) “Even in my first letter to Alberto [Barbera], I said there was no other place we can show this than in Venice.”

In typical Vinterberg fashion, “Families Like Ours” — as the title suggests — deals with family and society dynamics and behaviors, this time as Danish authorities suddenly announce that the country’s citizens are to be evacuated and scattered across the globe to whichever country will accept them. 

“It was actually conceived of several years ago as a crazy, futuristic idea, and was rejected by some of my friends,” he explains from Venice. “And suddenly it has become a normality, which is a little scary.”

But the actual disaster — the flooding — isn’t seen on screen, and serves more of a looming threat as the drama focuses on one family torn apart by the life-changing decisions they’re forced to make. 

“I wanted to make this real, and I think Denmark is a country that would not wait for a flooding, we would be prepared,” he says, adding that he believes a “fair way” would be found to rescue as many people as possible. “So I think in reality it would be a catastrophe movie in slow motion as it unrolls.”

Given its global themes — and the many other countries for whom the climate crisis represents a very real existential threat — “Families Like Ours,” despite being so deep-rooted in Danish society, feels like a drama ripe for numerous global adaptations. 

“From my experience, whenever I make something more general, nobody is interested,” says Vinterberg. “But when I do something super specifically Danish, it travels.”

As it happens, Vinterberg’s super specifically Danish “Another Round,” a comedy drama described as an “ode to alcohol,” following four friends as they try to maintain a level of alcohol in their blood to improve their lives, is travelling.

In 2021, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio would be producing a U.S. remake, and earlier this year Chris Rock was unveiled as the writer and director. Given the very different relationship America has with alcohol to Europe, many wondered how the story could be translated for the U.S. and Vinterberg admits he “had many of the same questions.” But he notes that inside the film is “an engine, the story of an experience, which you could place anywhere,” and that the best way to approach the remake would be “putting it in a different context and making it really American.”

That being said, when Rock’s name became attached to the project, Vinterberg offered a comical dig at the star, telling a Danish newspaper that, “If it’s shit, he’ll get slapped again.”

“I’m afraid I said that,” he notes. “But I sent him an apology as he might not have found it funny.”