Started watching this - eerie, really.

TV drama goes viral: the German-Danish series that foresaw Covid-19



Sløborn, which was filmed last year, airs on German TV as world fights coronavirus

When a bird-flu type disease originating in pigeons is discovered in northern China, the people living on an idyllic island in the North Sea think nothing of it.
But one day a sailing boat carrying the mummified bodies of a British couple washes up on the island. It subsequently emerges that they have brought the virus with them.
It sounds like a plot inspired by Covid-19, but in fact, Sløborn, a joint German-Danish production for TV, was filmed last year and has been airing on German TV as Europe and the rest of the world reeled from the real pandemic.
The show, whose title is a play on “slow burn”, tells the story of how life on a fictitious island of the same name descends into chaos and destruction as the virus takes hold.
The islanders are advised to wear face masks and practice social distancing. Quarantine rules are introduced, and conspiracy theories abound over the origins of the outbreak.
The show’s creators have described it as “a post-apocalyptic disaster thriller merged into a modern epic” that explores “what happens to modern people when the thin varnish of our civilisation collapses”. It was nearly pulled after bosses at broadcaster ZDF expressed concern it might be too close to reality for viewers to cope with.
“The question was whether we could ask of our audiences to watch it right now,” writer and director Christian Alvart told journalists ahead of broadcast.
Alvart, who consulted virologists and emergency service personnel to find out what Germany’s preparations were in case of a deadly pandemic, said he had been inspired by the thought that disasters “mainly happen elsewhere”, and wondered how it would it be if one was to strike closer to home.




“I had been amazed how we constantly hear about catastrophes in the world through the media but usually our lives just continue as normal,” he said.
When Germany was put into lockdown, the series was in post-production. “It sent shivers down my spine, knowing what we’d filmed in the previous year,” Alvart said.
German TV critics have been gently mocking of the series, which was filmed on the German East Frisian island of Nordeney and the Polish coastal resort, Sopot, in late 2019.
“Not very subtle,” was Der Spiegel’s verdict, in a possible reference one of the symptoms of the disease: the secretion of blood from eye sockets. Süddeutsche Zeitung said the show would have been “a run of the mill horror and catastrophe film” if not for the fact that “one is constantly reminded of the real news of the last few months”. Die Zeit described it as the “reluctant coronavirus series, the fictional accompaniment to the reality of the last few months”.
TV drama goes viral: the German-Danish series that foresaw Covid-19 | Coronavirus outbreak | The Guardian