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Stars: Kristine Kujath Thorp, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Anders Baasmo, Bjørn Floberg, Anneke von der Lippe, Ane Skumsvoll, Cengiz Al, Nils Elias Olsen | Written by Harald Rosenløw-Eeg Lars Gudmestad | Directed by John Andreas Andersen

The Burning Sea is a Norwegian film with an interesting, albeit depressing conceit…

In 1969, the Norwegian government announces their discovery of one of the world’s largest oil fields in the neighbouring North Sea, launching a prosperous period of offshore drilling. Fifty years later, the environmental consequences begin to manifest – a crack has opened on the ocean floor, causing a rig to collapse. A team of researchers, including submarine operator Sofia (Kristine Kujath Thorp), rushes in to search for the missing and assess the cause of the damage. But what they discover is that this is just the start of a possible apocalyptic catastrophe. As rigs are evacuated, Sofia’s partner Stian (Henrik Bjelland) becomes trapped in the depths of the sea,...

Tobias Menzies, who won last year’s primetime Emmy Award for his turn as Prince Philip in ‘The Crown,’ has joined the cast of “Made in Oslo,” a character-driven thriller series set at a fertility clinic in Norway.

Menzies stars in the cinematic show opposite Pia Tjelta, one of Norway’s most successful actors whose credits include successful shows such as “Norsemen” and “Lykkeland.”

Created and penned by Kathrine Valen Zeiner, the eight-part show is a Nent/Viaplay Original and is produced by Tordenfilm. It will premiere on Viaplay on April 24.

“Made in Oslo” is directed by Marit Moum Aune, whose credits includes “Angels in America – National Theatre” and “Oslo.”

In “Made in Oslo,” Tjelta plays Elin, a passionate doctor who runs a fertility clinic and becomes obsessed with her mission to help couples have children, leading her to break rules, cross boundaries and put her relationship with loved ones in jeopardy.

In “The Burning Sea,” which is your basic, everyday Norwegian oil-rig disaster thriller, Stian (Henrik Bjelland), a rig worker stationed on a drilling platform that’s about to collapse, must descend into the bowels of the rig to shut down a well that can’t be reached remotely. As the soundtrack fills with one of those flatulent brass musical scores that sounds like it’s heralding the arrival of the devil, a bureaucratically ominous title splashes across the screen: “D Shaft, Gullfaks A, 138 meters under the sea.” 138 meters? That’s pretty far down, though not necessarily deep enough to be, you know, scary.

The disaster film started off as a “realistic” genre, one that gradually grew more over-the-top. In recent decades, though, directors like Roland Emmerich have accustomed us to the earthly-disaster-as-digital-ride. You could say it’s refreshing that “The Burning Sea,” the third in a series of not-so-over-the-top Norwegian disaster films,...