Energy poverty is a complex topic affecting 100 million people across Europe and Northern America alone.
For the Energy Action Project together with Poul Madsen, I travelled across Europe to investigate the aspect of energy poverty. Cold at Home, one of the resulting films, goes into the story of three people, displaced by the war in Eastern Ukraine, trying to create a new home, while struggling with rising fuel prices and inadequate housing.
In the harsh winter of Eastern Ukraine, three people displaced by war struggle to create warmth in a converted summerhouse not built for cold weather. As temperatures plummet and fuel costs rise, this family's story represents a hidden crisis affecting 100 million people across Europe and North America who live in energy poverty.
Why the story matters
to keep their homes warm enough in 2023
after the war broke out in 2014.
We needed to transform the complex, often invisible issue of energy poverty into a compelling human story that would resonate with audiences worldwide. The challenge was to capture intimate moments of daily survival while connecting their personal struggle to the broader social crisis.
Working with photographer Poul Madsen, we embedded ourselves with the family during the coldest months of the winter, documenting their innovative ways to stay warm and their unwavering spirit to build a new life. We crafted a character-driven narrative that served as an entry point to a larger multimedia project exploring energy poverty across Europe, combining documentary filmmaking with investigative journalism.
The resulting film "Cold at Home" won the Danish Picture of the Year Award for Long Form Documentary, bringing widespread attention to energy poverty. The project became a cornerstone of the Energy Action Project (EnAct), leading to partnerships with major organizations and sparking discussions about energy poverty solutions across Europe.
- Production Year: 2016
- Client: The Energy Action Project
- Role: Story Development, Filming, Production & Editing
Another short form documentary for the Energy Action Project, explores the situation of inadequate housing in one of the old mining towns in Wales. With a lot of the housing not build for long term living, but still in use, isolation is very bad and therefor heating costs are high. Government programs try to fix that, but have a difficult time reaching the communities. The film follows a single mother with her two kids, how they try to safe on energy costs and educate the community at the same time.
