“White Lies,” a murder mystery series starring Natalie Dormer, has been acquired by Sundance Now for North America.
A collaboration between production company Quizzical Pictures and Pan-African broadcaster M-Net in partnership with Fremantle, “White Lies” is set in the wealthy Bishopscourt neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa. Dormer (“Penny Dreadful: City of Angels”) stars as an investigative journalist called Edie Hansen alongside Brendon Daniels (“Four Corners”), who plays detective Forty Bell.
“Following her estranged brother’s murder in his luxury home, Edie’s world plunges deeper into chaos when her brother’s teenage children become prime suspects for the crime,” reads the logline. “As Edie investigates, she finds herself at loggerheads with veteran detective Forty Bell, and grapples with the crumbling local police force, a corrupt political system and the secretive world of extreme Cape wealth.”
The eight-part series is written by Darrel Bristow-Bovey with John Trengove (“The Wound”) as lead director,...
A collaboration between production company Quizzical Pictures and Pan-African broadcaster M-Net in partnership with Fremantle, “White Lies” is set in the wealthy Bishopscourt neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa. Dormer (“Penny Dreadful: City of Angels”) stars as an investigative journalist called Edie Hansen alongside Brendon Daniels (“Four Corners”), who plays detective Forty Bell.
“Following her estranged brother’s murder in his luxury home, Edie’s world plunges deeper into chaos when her brother’s teenage children become prime suspects for the crime,” reads the logline. “As Edie investigates, she finds herself at loggerheads with veteran detective Forty Bell, and grapples with the crumbling local police force, a corrupt political system and the secretive world of extreme Cape wealth.”
The eight-part series is written by Darrel Bristow-Bovey with John Trengove (“The Wound”) as lead director,...
- 5/20/2024
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are emerging in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. That’s why we’re doing the hard work for you.
This week, we detail a co-production from South Africa and France that spotlights the four-wheeled sport of spinning. Not heard of it? Well neither had we, but on closer inspection this series is far more than an exhibition of a little-known extreme pasttime. Creatives on the Showmax-Canal+ co-pro tell us why ‘Spinners‘ holds a mirror up to society, and where they think it could travel next.
Name: Spinners
Country: South Africa & France
Networks: Showmax & Canal+
Producer: Empreinte Digitale & Natives at Large
International...
This week, we detail a co-production from South Africa and France that spotlights the four-wheeled sport of spinning. Not heard of it? Well neither had we, but on closer inspection this series is far more than an exhibition of a little-known extreme pasttime. Creatives on the Showmax-Canal+ co-pro tell us why ‘Spinners‘ holds a mirror up to society, and where they think it could travel next.
Name: Spinners
Country: South Africa & France
Networks: Showmax & Canal+
Producer: Empreinte Digitale & Natives at Large
International...
- 2/20/2024
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Fasten your seat belts! African streamer Showmax and Canal+ are getting ready to go pedal to the metal.
The streaming company, co-owned by African pay-tv giant MultiChoice Group and Comcast, and the French pay TV giant has released a trailer for the eight-part gangster and extreme sports drama Spinners, which The Hollywood Reporter is revealing exclusively.
The companies’ third co-production, set in South Africa’s Cape Town, became the first African show to take part in CanneSeries’ main competition.
Spinners follows Ethan (Cantona James), a 17-year-old driver working for a gang who is trying to support his younger brother and discovers a possible way out of gang life: spinning, an extreme motorsport that features drivers performing jaw-dropping daredevil stunts. However, a looming gang war jeopardizes his plans.
The cast includes James (Arendsvlei) and Chelsea Thomas (Arendsvlei) in leading roles, along with Elton Landrew (Recipes for Love & Murder); Dillon Windvogel...
The streaming company, co-owned by African pay-tv giant MultiChoice Group and Comcast, and the French pay TV giant has released a trailer for the eight-part gangster and extreme sports drama Spinners, which The Hollywood Reporter is revealing exclusively.
The companies’ third co-production, set in South Africa’s Cape Town, became the first African show to take part in CanneSeries’ main competition.
Spinners follows Ethan (Cantona James), a 17-year-old driver working for a gang who is trying to support his younger brother and discovers a possible way out of gang life: spinning, an extreme motorsport that features drivers performing jaw-dropping daredevil stunts. However, a looming gang war jeopardizes his plans.
The cast includes James (Arendsvlei) and Chelsea Thomas (Arendsvlei) in leading roles, along with Elton Landrew (Recipes for Love & Murder); Dillon Windvogel...
- 8/28/2023
- by Georg Szalai
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Unseen is a South African series created by Travis Taute and Daryne Joshua starring Gail Mabalane and Brendon Daniels.
About the Series
Unseen is an interesting South African series that behaves like a classic thriller, but with a realistic tone: it’s a tale full of mysteries where everything revolves around a protagonist who, on going to pick up her husband from prison, it turns out that he is simply not there.
There begins a plot that will lead her through criminal organizations and into the underworld, the descent into hell of a woman full of goodness, a cleaner, who is forced to become a murderess due to circumstance.
Entertaining, well paced, with the impediment of the production. This is not Revenge (the one with Emily VanCamp) nor are we in the Hamptons. Here we travel to a world that, with no pretences, spreads out its nets in the thick of night,...
About the Series
Unseen is an interesting South African series that behaves like a classic thriller, but with a realistic tone: it’s a tale full of mysteries where everything revolves around a protagonist who, on going to pick up her husband from prison, it turns out that he is simply not there.
There begins a plot that will lead her through criminal organizations and into the underworld, the descent into hell of a woman full of goodness, a cleaner, who is forced to become a murderess due to circumstance.
Entertaining, well paced, with the impediment of the production. This is not Revenge (the one with Emily VanCamp) nor are we in the Hamptons. Here we travel to a world that, with no pretences, spreads out its nets in the thick of night,...
- 3/29/2023
- by Veronica Loop
- Martin Cid - TV
Game of Thrones star Natalie Dormer is leading a thriller for South African network M-Net.
Filming will commence next month on White Lies, which will star Dormer alongside Brendon Daniels (Four Corners) as investigative journalist Edie Hansen and detective Forty Bell respectively. Set in the wealthy neighbourhood of Bishopscourt, Cape Town, Hansen gets caught up in the ugly underbelly that lies beneath the picturesque beauty of the city, dragging her back to a turbulent past. Following her estranged brother’s murder in his luxury home, her world plunges deeper into chaos when her brother’s teenage children become prime suspects for the crime, as she finds herself at loggerheads with Bell.
Having previously combined on International Emmy Award-nominated M-Net drama Reyka, South African indie Quizzical Pictures is producing with Fremantle.
Dormer is a great get. She is best known for her role as Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones and...
Filming will commence next month on White Lies, which will star Dormer alongside Brendon Daniels (Four Corners) as investigative journalist Edie Hansen and detective Forty Bell respectively. Set in the wealthy neighbourhood of Bishopscourt, Cape Town, Hansen gets caught up in the ugly underbelly that lies beneath the picturesque beauty of the city, dragging her back to a turbulent past. Following her estranged brother’s murder in his luxury home, her world plunges deeper into chaos when her brother’s teenage children become prime suspects for the crime, as she finds herself at loggerheads with Bell.
Having previously combined on International Emmy Award-nominated M-Net drama Reyka, South African indie Quizzical Pictures is producing with Fremantle.
Dormer is a great get. She is best known for her role as Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones and...
- 2/28/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games star Natalie Dormer is set to lead the cast of White Lies, a South African crime thriller from M-Net, Quizzical Pictures and Fremantle.
The Hollywood Reporter can reveal that the British actress — who became a fan favorite for playing Margaery Tyrell across 26 episodes of Game of Thrones — is now in Cape Town, where shooting is due to start on March 6. Dormer also had major roles in Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Tudors, and moved into producing and writer with 2018 thriller In Darkness.
Joining Dormer is award-winning South African actor Brendon Daniels, whose credits include the acclaimed film Four Corners, Skemerdans and Trackers, another M-Net international co-production.
Created by Sean Steinberg and written by award-winning scriptwriter Darrel Bristow-Bovey, White Lies is described as an “urgent exploration of race and privilege, inequality and identity.”
Set in the wealthy neighbourhood of Bishopscourt, Cape Town, the...
The Hollywood Reporter can reveal that the British actress — who became a fan favorite for playing Margaery Tyrell across 26 episodes of Game of Thrones — is now in Cape Town, where shooting is due to start on March 6. Dormer also had major roles in Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Tudors, and moved into producing and writer with 2018 thriller In Darkness.
Joining Dormer is award-winning South African actor Brendon Daniels, whose credits include the acclaimed film Four Corners, Skemerdans and Trackers, another M-Net international co-production.
Created by Sean Steinberg and written by award-winning scriptwriter Darrel Bristow-Bovey, White Lies is described as an “urgent exploration of race and privilege, inequality and identity.”
Set in the wealthy neighbourhood of Bishopscourt, Cape Town, the...
- 2/28/2023
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Festivals
American narrative feature projects in rough or final cut seeking finishing funds are now invited to submit to the 2022 edition of U.S. in Progress, which takes place Nov. 9-11 during the 13th American Film Festival (Nov.8-13) in Wroclaw, Poland. The strand pairs American projects in final production stages with European buyers and top Polish image and sound post-production companies and provides awards worth totally $100,000. The head of the Polish Film Institute, Radosław Śmigulski, will award one project with a $50,000 cash award to be spent on post-production, image, sound and/or VFX in Poland and Polish post-production companies Fixafilm, Orka Studio, Black Photon, Xanf and Soundflower Studio are each offering a $10,000 in-kind award.
There is no entry fee, and films can be submitted through the U.S. in Progress website. The final deadline is September 11.
The program’s objective is to inspire U.S. producers to work with Poland,...
American narrative feature projects in rough or final cut seeking finishing funds are now invited to submit to the 2022 edition of U.S. in Progress, which takes place Nov. 9-11 during the 13th American Film Festival (Nov.8-13) in Wroclaw, Poland. The strand pairs American projects in final production stages with European buyers and top Polish image and sound post-production companies and provides awards worth totally $100,000. The head of the Polish Film Institute, Radosław Śmigulski, will award one project with a $50,000 cash award to be spent on post-production, image, sound and/or VFX in Poland and Polish post-production companies Fixafilm, Orka Studio, Black Photon, Xanf and Soundflower Studio are each offering a $10,000 in-kind award.
There is no entry fee, and films can be submitted through the U.S. in Progress website. The final deadline is September 11.
The program’s objective is to inspire U.S. producers to work with Poland,...
- 8/10/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Canal+ is teaming with African streamer Showmax for its latest drama from Africa, an action drama about the dangerous South African motor sport spinning. Production on Spinners began in Cape Town on the eight-part series this week, with Gaia director Jaco Bouwer attached.
Shot in English, Kaaps and Afrikaans, it is produced by Joachim Landau and Raphaël Rocher for French indie Empreinte Digitale and co-produced by Locarno, Amiens and Fespaco winner Ramadan Suleman and his full service film and TV production outfit Natives at Large. Canal+-owned Studiocanal has international distribution rights.
Landau co-created the show with Benjamin Hoffman. Director is Bouwer, whose horror Gaia won the Zeiss Cinematography Award last year at SXSW, and Matthew Jankes, Sean Steinberg, Gillian Breslin, Daniel Zimbler, Byron Abrahams and Zoë Laband comprising the writing team.
The motor sport on which the series is based sees cars driven at high speed with drivers performing...
Shot in English, Kaaps and Afrikaans, it is produced by Joachim Landau and Raphaël Rocher for French indie Empreinte Digitale and co-produced by Locarno, Amiens and Fespaco winner Ramadan Suleman and his full service film and TV production outfit Natives at Large. Canal+-owned Studiocanal has international distribution rights.
Landau co-created the show with Benjamin Hoffman. Director is Bouwer, whose horror Gaia won the Zeiss Cinematography Award last year at SXSW, and Matthew Jankes, Sean Steinberg, Gillian Breslin, Daniel Zimbler, Byron Abrahams and Zoë Laband comprising the writing team.
The motor sport on which the series is based sees cars driven at high speed with drivers performing...
- 8/10/2022
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
"Poppie, you know what we're doing is dangerous?" In the midst of the winter film festival season, take a look at this stylistic drama arriving later this year. The Match Factory has debuted an international / promo trailer for an indie titled Flatland, the latest feature film directed by Jenna Bass. This "contemporary western" is about the journey of self-discovery for three different but equally trapped women. It paints a vivid and unique portrait of femininity against a hostile frontier land and questions what it means to be a woman today in South Africa and the world at large. Faith Baloyi stars as Beauty Cuba, and a cast including Nicole Fortuin, Izel Bezuidenhout, Brendon Daniels, and De Klerk Oelofse. The film features a number of different languages, including English, following these three different women. This looks like something die-hard cinephiles will love, with some crazy footage thrown in. Here's the official...
- 1/30/2019
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Stars: Zethu Dlomo, Garth Breytenbach, Kenneth Fok, Dean Fourie, Vuyo Dabula, Warren Masemola, Kenneth Nkosi, Brendon Daniels, Jerry Mofokeng, Anthony Oseyemi, Mduduzi Mabaso, Lizwi Vilakazi, Hamilton Dhlamini, Aubrey Poolo | Written by Sean Drummond | Directed by Michael Matthews
A story about five friends who as kids decide that they are charged with the task of saving there home town of Marseilles. As protectors they become known as the Five Fingers. They will stand tall against the police force that has a strangle hold on their town. That is until there fearless and headstrong leader Tau (Vuyo Dabula) realises that catapults, sticks and stones are no use against bullets. During a confrontation Tau takes the life of two officers and feels like the only way to protect his friends is to flee the town he loves.
Cut to 20 years later and life has been a never ending struggle for Tau, after years...
A story about five friends who as kids decide that they are charged with the task of saving there home town of Marseilles. As protectors they become known as the Five Fingers. They will stand tall against the police force that has a strangle hold on their town. That is until there fearless and headstrong leader Tau (Vuyo Dabula) realises that catapults, sticks and stones are no use against bullets. During a confrontation Tau takes the life of two officers and feels like the only way to protect his friends is to flee the town he loves.
Cut to 20 years later and life has been a never ending struggle for Tau, after years...
- 10/3/2018
- by Kevin Haldon
- Nerdly
Director Michael Matthews and writer Sean Drummond were drawn to the landscapes of South Africa’s Eastern Cape while traveling their homeland, especially the echoes of classic cinematic western environments. Learning about how its current towns arose — from the ashes of Apartheid-era cities mimicking European capitals by name — only cemented the comparison, each a product of the locals taking control once their oppressors left after their government changed hands and the train lines shutdown. This new frontier became the pair’s setting, their story gelling after seven years of research and development to do right by the inhabitants’ history and struggles. Sprinkle in a bit of legend and lore to create an antihero hidden beneath rage and Five Fingers for Marseilles was born.
The title describes a quintet of childhood friends caught within Apartheid’s grip. Too young to feel the effects as greatly as their defeated parents, they’re...
The title describes a quintet of childhood friends caught within Apartheid’s grip. Too young to feel the effects as greatly as their defeated parents, they’re...
- 9/10/2017
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
"You've been sent to judge me." This looks like it could be a big breakout at the Toronto Film Festival this year. A teaser trailer has debuted for the film Five Fingers for Marseilles, a "neo-western" set in South Africa. The story follows a young boy whose life is changed forever when he kills two corrupt policemen in a South African shanty town. Two decades later, he finally heads home but his return brings out his enemies who go after him and all of his friends. Starring Vuyo Dabula, Hamilton Dhlamini, Zethu Dlomo, Kenneth Nkosi, Mduduzi Mabaso, Aubrey Poolo, Lizwi Vilakazi, Warren Masemola, Anthony Oseyemi, Brendon Daniels, and Jerry Mofokeng. The two filmmakers spent 7 years researching and developing this, "including 5,000 miles of cross-country travel, development, and filming amidst the erratic winter weather of the Eastern Cape." From the looks of it, this film might just be as awesome as it sounds.
- 8/25/2017
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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