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Lille, France — The gauntlet thrown down by the opening stretches of Viaplay banner title “The Fortress,” one of nine series in main competition at Series Mania, is to believe that this is fiction.

News footage plays of a pandemic, then a war; huge protests rage around the world as Norway’s prime minister addresses his nation to announce that Norway is building a wall to keep everybody else out. That’s been done before (Israel) and in metaphorical terms (Brexit).

Cut to nine years later: Norway is a bucolic paradise, Sweden next door a refugee camp hell, until strange bacteria kills fish and then humans, and Norway will, foreseeably, need international help and “what starts as a wall, ends as a prison,” comments Filippa Wallestam, Viaplay Group chief content officer.

Set in an eerily familiar 2037 Bergen, and starring Selome Emnetu (“Occupied”) and Russell Tovey (“Years & Years”), “The Fortress” weighs...

Viaplay’s next Norwegian original series “The Fortress” is currently shooting in Bergen with a cast including Tobias Santelmann (“Kon-Tiki”), Selome Emnetu (“Luka and the Magical Theater”) and British star Russell Tovey (“Years and Years”).

Directed by Cecilie Mosli and Mikkel Brænne Sandemose (“State of Happiness”), the ambitious eight-part dystopian drama is set in 2037 in Norway. The country has decided to build an enormous wall around its borders to isolate itself and its citizens from the rest of the world. When a deadly pandemic breaks out, the inhabitants soon realize that the wall intended to protect them is instead holding them prisoner.

The show was written by Linn-Jeanethe Kyed (“Bø”) and author John Kåre Råke (“The Quake”). It will launch on Viaplay in 2023.

“Cecilie has directed most of the scenes involving my character, and she is talented, generous and committed,” said Santelmann. “My experience is that both Mikkel and...