A New Kind of Wilderness

Away from the bustle of the world, in the heart of the dark Norwegian woods, Maria and Nik are raising their four children in complete harmony with nature, seeking a more fulfilling existence at a more relaxed pace. However, Maria’s unexpected passing will upend the family’s tranquility and expose them to new challenges, the biggest of which includes their unavoidable return to “civilization.” This documentary by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen (whom we were first introduced to through the remarkable Faith Can Move Mountains) transforms us into members of the family, making us privy to the tenderness, love, and sorrow that this family experiences within its core. Through these new challenges and the idyllic moments of the past, captured by the lens of Maria's camera, the film delicately and insightfully explores the ties that bind and how to navigate loss, along with our precarious relationship with nature and our responsibility to the planet, in a film that is both disarmingly simple yet extremely complex at the same time.