The viral video was a clip from a dark comedy movie called "Force Majeure," directed by Ruben Östlund.
In June 2023, a video circulated on social media, allegedly depicting a man running away from his family during an avalanche. "OMG I can not believe this!! Dad ran away!!," one post with over 2 million views on Twitter read.
OMG I can not believe this!! Dad ran away!!pic.twitter.com/K2qUZX8R9a
— Figen (@TheFigen_) April 3, 2023
In the viral video, a man is seen sitting with his wife and two children at an outdoor restaurant near a snow-covered mountain at a ski resort. Suddenly, an avalanche is seen heading towards them. The man panics and leaves his family behind as they are getting covered in snow.
This tweet was a variation on a familiar claim that first surfaced in June 2019. As before, we rate this decontextualized video Miscaptioned. Moreover, the same video went viral and was again miscaptioned in December 2022, as Reuters reported.
The video did not show an actual real-life event. The clip was an excerpt from a 2014 Swedish dark comedy film entitled "Force Majeure", written and directed by Ruben Östlund.
(Twitter user @TheFigen_)
We found the avalanche scene in the official trailer of the "Force Majeure" movie:
Moreover, the full scene that went viral on social media was published on Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing YouTube channel:
"Force Majeure" won the Un Certain Regard jury prize in 2014 at the Cannes Film Festival. Its description on the official Cannes' website read:
A Swedish family travels to the French Alps to enjoy a few days of skiing. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but, during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche turns everything upside down. With diners fleeing in all directions, mother Ebba calls for her husband Tomas as she tries to protect their children. Tomas, meanwhile, is running for his life… The anticipated disaster failed to occur, and yet the family's world has been shaken to its core, a question mark hanging over their father in particular. Tomas and Ebba's marriage now hangs in the balance as Tomas struggles desperately to reclaim his role as family patriarch. FORCE MAJEURE is an observational comedy about the role of the male in modern family life.
Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know.