With HELGOLAND 513, a near-future drama series from Robert Schwentke (FLIGHTPLAN, R.E.D., DER HAUPTMANN) in the role of showrunner, head writer and director, UFA Fiction is producing for Sky for the first time.

The action-packed and visionary story takes the audience to the last safe bastion of humanity: Heligoland. A small community of survivors of an apocalypse that has overrun the rest of the world and plunged it into chaos is entrenched here on Germany’s only high seas island.

But the price of their survival is high. Resources on the rocky island are scarce, so an inhumane “social ranking” system determines the lives of the 513 inhabitants: Each islander is rated according to their usefulness. The only doctor is high up on the list, others are far behind and they have to fight for their place on the list and their survival. Meanwhile, people from the mainland try to get to Heligoland and the Heligolanders have to defend their island.

Veronica Priefer and Johannes Kunkel, producers at UFA Fiction: “The world of Helgoland 513 is tense and without loopholes. It is about the abolition of traditional morals and the desperate search for a new ethic that can cope with the catastrophic circumstances and demands of a new world. What does isolation and division do to a society and how thin is the shell of civilization when it comes to bare survival? How does a community teach its youth the values of a world that has long since perished? All these questions are the exciting subject of this series, which traces the conditions of the present in the mirror of the future.”

Andreas Perzl, Executive Producer Sky: “The original story we are telling with HELGOLAND 513, in which a small group of people live isolated on an offshore island, describes an exaggerated near-future scenario that raises exciting questions. As head writer and showrunner, Robert Schwentke has found very original, entertaining and at times black-humorous answers to these questions and has recruited a great team and an outstanding cast for the project. We are delighted that filming will soon begin under his direction in Berlin, which will then take us to Hamburg, Sylt and Amrum. Our viewers can look forward to a visionary drama series that will add another facet to the line-up of our Sky Originals from Germany.”