A New Kind of Wilderness
Feature documentary film, Release: 2024, Directed by: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
On a small farm in a Norwegian forest, the Paynes live a purposefully isolated life, aiming to be wild and free. Maria and Nik, together with their four children Ulv, Falk, Freja, and Ronja, embrace self-sufficiency, practicing homeschooling and striving for a closely knit family dynamic in harmony with nature.
To sustain this type of lifestyle Maria works as a photographer, and her true passion lies in capturing intimate moments of her family’s life. However, when Maria is diagnosed with cervical cancer, which leads to her passing after a brief illness, it upends the family’s idyllic world and forces them to forge a new path into modern society.
A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS is an intimate and soulful portrait of love, life, and growing up. The Payne’s journey, their triumphs and struggles, invite reflection on our own life choices, our responsibility to the planet and our children, and how we navigate life after loss.
Maria Gros Vatne
1978-2019
«A mother of four, photographer, nature lover. Someone trying to make sense of it all, through photos and stories. I try to be free in all senses of the word, so I made the leap and now work with what I love doing; taking pictures, storing this life in moments, both for myself and for clients. We govern our own lives, we strive for independence, we want to be in this life wild and free and full of love.»
– Maria Gros Vatne
Maria was educated in Photography from Napier University in Scotland and the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim. She worked as a teacher in photography before she made the leap and dedicated her time as a full-time photographer, which she continued to do for over ten years. She eventually became a recognized photographer in the photographic art community in Scandinavia. Both for her photos of births, «mother- hood», and photos of her family. Photography was her and her family’s livelihood until the end. In 2019 Maria passed away due to cervical cancer after a brief period of illness. Maria’s blog www.wildandfree.no, telling the story of her family’s everyday life, had tens of thousands of followers, and her photographs are recognized and admired worldwide.
She had the unique gift of capturing life’s small moments, and her work reminds us that we have to live in the moment and appreciate the small things. She takes us right back to childhood and the awe and wonder for nature and all things alive.
Maria inspires us to live a little in every moment while we are here on this planet. To count our blessings in the everyday beauty of the imperfect, but still so perfect life that we live. The impermanent and the fragile, yet so strong, core of life that we need to hold carefully to our hearts.
