Laura (Amaryllis August) runs through a crowd of protesters in the Danish cli-fi drama Families Like Ours Families Like Ours has become national talking point but some scientists say events depicted could not happen Featuring scenes of huge crowds boarding ferries, protest and desperation as six million Danes become climate refugees and life as they know it rapidly collapses, the new TV series by the Oscar-winning director Thomas Vinterberg is a potential “look into the future”, he says. Familier som vores (Families Like Ours) – a drama which depicts a flooded Denmark shut down and evacuated – has been viewed nearly 1m times and become a national talking point. At its premiere at the Venice international film festival, it evoked tears, shouts and a standing ovation , with one critic describing it as “grimly prophetic” . Vinterberg, who co-founded the Dogme 95 film movement and whose film Druk (Another Round) won the Academy Award for best international feature in 2020, wrote in his director’s statement that the drama – part of the cli-fi, or climate fiction, genre that sets stories in the impacts of the climate crisis and global heating – “imagines a situation where we, as citizens of a civilised and wealthy part of the world, are forced to leave our country, our friends, relatives, and everything we hold dear”. Jacob (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Amalie (Helene Reingaard Neumann) carrying their luggage as they arrive in France having left a flooded Denmark. Photograph: Canal+ But among climate scientists and experts, the show has divided opinions. Some have praised it for bringing the climate crisis to life by depicting white privileged Danes as climate refugees. Others have criticised the show for depicting a scenario that they claim could not scientifically happen and for focusing on the personal drama and […]