‘POV’ Delivers a Visually Stunning Portrait of Family, Grief, and Off-Grid Living in A New Kind of Wilderness
Overview
Premieres Monday, August 25, 2025 at 10pm on PBS Television; Streaming Available on PBS App Until October 24, 2025
Brooklyn, N.Y. – July 29, 2025 – POV, the multi-Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning documentary series, presents A New Kind of Wilderness, a poignant film from Norwegian director/producer Silje Evensmo Jacobsen and producer Mari Bakke Riise. Utilizing vérité style filmmaking, Jacobsen offers a soulful portrait of a family embracing an off-the-grid life deep in Norway’s wilderness.
Hailed by Kristy Strouse of Film Inquiry as “an honest and tender film, beautifully shot, and empathetic in its delivery, A New Kind of Wilderness will make its national broadcast premiere on Monday, August 25, 2025 at 10pm (check local listings) on PBS Television. It will then be available to stream until October 24, 2025 at pbs.org, and the PBS App. Now in its 38th season, POV remains America's longest-running nonfiction series.
In A New Kind of Wilderness, Maria and Nik Payne left the rat race to pursue their dream of living a purposefully wild, self-sufficient, free existence with their four children—Ulv, Falk, Freja, and Ronja— on a small farm deep in the Norwegian forest. Their days were filled with nature walks, farming lessons, and screen-free homeschooling, fostering a close-knit family dynamic in harmony with nature. But when tragedy strikes, their idyllic world unravels. After Maria’s death, Nik struggles to maintain their off-the-grid lifestyle as the challenges of single parenthood push him to return to city life.
Director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen first discovered the Paynes ten years ago through Maria’s blog WildandFree.no. Inspired by Maria’s vision, Jacobsen embedded with the family to document their journey, their joys and hardships, while inviting audiences to reflect on our own life choices, our responsibility to the planet and our children, and how we navigate life after loss. In A New Kind of Wilderness, filmmaker Silje Evensmo Jacobsen crafts an intimate and soulful portrait of love, resilience, and growing up.
“I was deeply moved by the way Maria and her family had built a life centered around nature, time together, and freedom from societal expectations,” said director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen. “After her passing, I felt a strong need to keep that vision alive, to share how they had chosen to live on their own terms, even in the face of profound loss. A New Kind of Wilderness is a quiet reflection on grief, parenting, family relations, and the courage it takes to live simply in a complex world.
“I hope the film invites audiences to slow down and reconnect with their loved ones, with the natural world, and with what really matters. I’m honored that POV is airing the film; public media makes space for stories like this, ones that don’t shout but stay with you, tender, honest stories about what it means to be human.”
“A New Kind of Wilderness is a moving meditation on love, loss, and the delicate balance between our dreams and reality,” said Chris White, Executive Producer, POV. “As a public media platform, we are proud to champion stories that reflect the complexity of the human experience. Silje Evensmo Jacobsen delivers a beautifully observed story about family, resilience, and our connection to the natural world.”
A New Kind of Wilderness made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (2024), where it took home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary. The film also won the Documentary Competition Award at the Seattle International Film Festival (2024), Best Documentary at the Reykjavik Film Festival (2024), the grand Prize at the Budapest International Film Festival (2024), the Audience Award at Millennium Against Gravity(2024), the Bronze Star at the El Gouna Film Festival (2024) and International Competition Special Mention at Zagreb Dox (2024). An official selection of more than 50 festivals worldwide, key festivals include CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, Docville, Visions du Réel, DOK.fest München, and Thessaloniki International Film Festival. The film also received the Japan Prize Foundation’s Special Prize (2024).
A New Kind of Wilderness is an A5 Film presentation. Silje Evensmo Jacobsen is the director and screenwriter, and the producers are Silje Evensmo Jacobsen and Mari Bakke Riise. The cinematographers are Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Karine Fosser, Fred Arne Wergeland, Espen Gjermundrød, Line K Lyngstadaas, and Natalja Safronova. The editors are Kristian Tveit and Christoffer Heie. Original music by Olav Øyehaug and Daniel Norgren. The executive producers are Kim Christiansen; and Erika Dilday and Chris White for American Documentary.
Photos
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Credits
Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
Producers: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Mari Bakke Riise
Cast/Participants: Nik Payne, Ronja Breda Vatne, Freja Payne, Falk Payne, Ulv Payne, Maria Vatne
Executive Producers: Kim Christiansen; Erika Dilday, Chris White for American Documentary
Screenwriter: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
Cinematographers: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Karine Fosser, Fred Arne Wergeland, Espen Gjermundrød, Line K Lyngstadaas, Natalja Safronova
Editors: Kristian Tveit and Christoffer Heie
Original Music: Olav Øyehaug and Daniel Norgren
Languages: Norwegian, English
Country: Norway
Year: 2024
About the Filmmakers
Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Director, Producer, Screenwriter, Cinematographer, A New Kind of Wilderness
Silje Evensmo Jacobsen has directed award-winning documentary films and series for the past 15 years. Among others: Team Ingebrigtsen (2016, 2018) about an unconventional Norwegian family where the children are raised to be top international runners, Faith Can Move Mountains (2021) about nuns breaking boundaries in rural Norway, and KRAFT/SPARK (2022) about young street dancers aiming for the sky. A New Kind of Wilderness is her second feature, produced by A5 Film – an Oslo-based production company founded by Jacobsen, alongside producer/director Mari Bakke Riise.
Mari Bakke Riise, Producer, Screenwriter, Cinematographer, A New Kind of Wilderness
Mari Bakke Riise has for the last 17 years worked on numerous documentaries and documentary series. She is the co-owner of A5 Film, a documentary production company she runs together with Silje Evensmo Jacobsen. She is behind several award-winning titles, one of them: Kayayo – the living shopping baskets, won 17 international first prize awards and was shortlisted for an Oscar at the 90th Academy Awards.
About
About POV
Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of, and behind, the camera. The series is known for introducing generations of viewers to groundbreaking works like Tongues Untied (1989), Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1992), Rabbit in the Room (1999), Of Civil Wrongs & Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2001), Made in L.A. (2007), American Promise (2013), Not Going Quietly (2021), While We Watched (2022), A House Made of Splinters (2022), The Last Out (2023) and the mini-series And She Could be Next (2020). Throughout its history POV has featured the work of award-winning, innovative filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, Laura Poitras, Nanfu Wang, Frederick Wiseman, Emiko Omori, Janus Metz Pedersen and Ava DuVernay. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. In 2024, Indiewire named seven POV films in its roundup of “The 50 Best Documentaries of the 21st Century”: Faya Dayi (2021), The Mole Agent (2020), Minding The Gap (2018), Cameraperson (2016), The Look of Silence (2015), The Act of Killing (2013) and After Tiller (2013). All POV programs are available for streaming concurrent with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website.
POV goes “beyond the broadcast” to bring powerful nonfiction storytelling to viewers wherever they are. Free educational resources accompany every film and a community network of thousands of partners nationwide work with POV to spark dialogue around today’s most pressing issues. POV continues to explore the future of documentary through innovative productions with partners such as The New York Times and The National Film Board of Canada and on platforms including Instagram.
POV films and projects have won 48 Emmy Awards, 28 George Foster Peabody Awards, 16 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards® and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.
About American Documentary, Inc.
American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia organization dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Acton Family Giving, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.
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