Man With A Family - A Greenlandic Adventure

This is a bittersweet self-shot family portrait of the Strandberg´s as we move to Greenland. Once we settle in our icy paradise, everything goes wrong. Leaving me to fear for my daughter’s life and fight for my wife´s love. But this is Greenland; things will turn out fine.

In July 2017, we the Strandberg Family arrive to one of the most isolated places on earth, Qasigiannguit, in North-Western Greenland. I, Mikael Strandberg, have spent the last 33 years, as an explorer and documentary filmmaker, often travelling alone in extreme environments. But this time I have brought the love of my life, my wife Pam, and my two daughters, Dana, 5 year old and Eva, 7 years old Eva. We have come to Greenland to see if this could be our future home. We immediately fall in love with the great surrounding nature. It is the healthiest and freest place on earth. The girls integrate quickly into the local school and Pam is lucky to immediately find a job gutting fish at the local factory. A chance for her to get closer to local people as the anthropologist she is. We spend most of our time outdoors, fishing, running, being happy and we feel that we have found a place where we belong. Finally, after years of searching!

Winter is coming. Gradually it gets darker, colder, stormier and harsher outside. And the feeling inside is the same. Our little cute cabin turns into a freezing icebox and suddenly the two small rooms we have, and the bucket for a toilet, feel like a prison. Pam has to get up at 4 am each morning. We suddenly realize that if a conflict arises, there´s nowhere to go. There are no roads. It is 24 hours darkness outside and beyond the village limit, there´s nothing but the greatest wilderness on earth. The only way in or out during winter is by snowmobile and helicopter.

Suddenly my wife starts disappearing at night. And we realize something is truly wrong with our eldest daughter Eva. She has problems reading, bumps into things and lacks balance.

I think it is a tumor in her brain, the visiting Danish doctor tell us.

We immediately get shipped out by helicopter to Copenhagen, where the girls and me spend three months, and two eye operations to save Eva´s eyesight. Luckily there is no tumor. But an autoimmune disease we will have to deal with it for the rest of her life. But she is ok for now.

In the mean time I find out that Pam is having an affair. And that she has moved in with another man back in Greenland. I enter a state of shock and disbelief.

I finally start to understand the great beauty of how the Greenlanders see life. Where we in the West can´t fart without disapproval anymore, here in the north people are way more realistic, they accept each other for who they are. They have to. You can´t be anonymous, you can´t escape life. Suddenly our troubles make us become part of the community showing we are not different to anyone else.

But that is not the end. It is much better than that. My wife and I eventually realize life´s too short to feel pain and grief. We sort things out in the best of ways. It turns out Pam needs to be a free human being and just had to get away from the constraints of what she saw as a normal boring relationship and family life. I fully understand this urge. I once felt the same thing, so who am I to question this? So today we are not only the best of friends, we are in full agreement about life. I look after the girls and she seeks her freedom as one of the strongest and most charismatic of human beings.

A documentary produced by Mikael Strandberg, directed by Mikael Strandberg and Ulrika Rang, co-produced by Lars Säfström, SVT, Lisa Nyed, Film i Skåne Nordnorsk Filmcenter and Kalle Rikardsen, Relation04Media and Jeff Willner, Kensington Tours. Editor Ulrika Rang, colorgrading Johan Eklund, Goodfilm AB, music Rune Hansen/Aurora Filmly, Music Ville Langfeldt and Jakob Jannsönn. Story consultant Susan Brand. Executive Producer Jeff Willner, Kensington Tours.