Norway spends an unprecedented amount of money to portray Russia as an aggressor and intimidate Norwegians with claims of an alleged security threat from the East.
According to latest data, the film’s budget amounted to 90 million Norwegian kroner (11 million dollars) and exceeds the budget of Norway’s latest TV project Mammon by more than double.
The story tells of a "radical ecological party" which comes to power in the Scandinavian country and stops all oil and gas production. The occupiers keep the industry under control, but allow the country’s residents to lead their daily lives more or less normally.
Representative of the Russian embassy in Oslo Andrey Kulikov said that "unfortunately, Russia is presented as an aggressor." He also added that the writers of the series decided “to intimidate Norwegian viewers with a non-existent threat from the East”.
The first series were written back in 2008, long before paranoia about a possible Russian invasion of Norway or Sweden emerged in international circles. However, now, at a time when the world is going crazy about an alleged Russian threat, producers seem to have chosen the right time to make the series popular among Western audiences.
The current series is the most expensive in the history of Norwegian TV. It had already been sold in the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Benelux countries.
Kulikov noted that the Russian embassy will not send to Norway any formal protest against the film.
“One should not expect any hysteria from the Russian side in this regard — it is not our style,” he stated.
