The crime noir genre gets a distinctly South African twist in the new series “Donkerbos,” which premiered its first episodes this week as part of the Berlinale Series Market Selects lineup at the European Film Market.
The show begins when the bodies of six children are found in the forests of a provincial backwater town, and a local detective (Erica Wessels) is called in to investigate the shocking crimes. But as the series unfolds, she’s forced to wrestle with her dark past, her family and a distrustful community to catch the killer before another child is taken.
Written and directed by Nico Scheepers, “Donkerbos” is produced by Nagvlug Films and sold globally by MultiChoice, which bowed the show last year on its SVOD platform Showmax.
This marks the second year running that South Africa scored a coveted berth in the Berlinale Series Market Selects lineup, which showcases 16 series from...
The show begins when the bodies of six children are found in the forests of a provincial backwater town, and a local detective (Erica Wessels) is called in to investigate the shocking crimes. But as the series unfolds, she’s forced to wrestle with her dark past, her family and a distrustful community to catch the killer before another child is taken.
Written and directed by Nico Scheepers, “Donkerbos” is produced by Nagvlug Films and sold globally by MultiChoice, which bowed the show last year on its SVOD platform Showmax.
This marks the second year running that South Africa scored a coveted berth in the Berlinale Series Market Selects lineup, which showcases 16 series from...
- 2/22/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Crime shows look for a new angle, argued Berlinale Series participants on Monday.
There is no shortage of new offerings, from Berlinale Market Selects’ “Two Sides of the Abyss,” Serbia’s “The Fall” or South Africa’s “Donkerbos,” created by Nico Scheepers, to China’s melancholic, decades-spanning “Why Try to Change Me Now,” with Golden Bear winner Yinan Diao attached as executive producer.
But while there is still an appetite for traditional detective stories, producers and broadcasters are venturing out of the “damaged, middle-aged white detective slot on a Sunday night,” suggested All3Media International’s Rachel Glaister. They are also thinking about their younger audience.
“[‘The Gymnasts’] wasn’t born as a pure crime show. We were also attracted by other themes, including coming-of-age,” said Carlotta Claori of Indigo Film when discussing the series about a tournament in the Italian Alps, gone horribly wrong.
With “The Gymnasts” adding a female detective, absent...
There is no shortage of new offerings, from Berlinale Market Selects’ “Two Sides of the Abyss,” Serbia’s “The Fall” or South Africa’s “Donkerbos,” created by Nico Scheepers, to China’s melancholic, decades-spanning “Why Try to Change Me Now,” with Golden Bear winner Yinan Diao attached as executive producer.
But while there is still an appetite for traditional detective stories, producers and broadcasters are venturing out of the “damaged, middle-aged white detective slot on a Sunday night,” suggested All3Media International’s Rachel Glaister. They are also thinking about their younger audience.
“[‘The Gymnasts’] wasn’t born as a pure crime show. We were also attracted by other themes, including coming-of-age,” said Carlotta Claori of Indigo Film when discussing the series about a tournament in the Italian Alps, gone horribly wrong.
With “The Gymnasts” adding a female detective, absent...
- 2/21/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
African streaming service Showmax has inked a two-series slate deal with Tshedza Pictures, the South African production company behind the International Emmy-nominated telenovela “The River,” the company announced Tuesday at the start of the Joburg Film Festival.
“Adulting,” Tshedza’s first Showmax Original, is an eight-part drama series set in the parallel universes of four varsity friends. Their strong bond has held them together even as their journeys in life have taken them in very different directions — a bond the show’s creators describe as “the bromance of the decade.”
Tshedza’s second Showmax Original, “Outlaws,” is a cross-cultural love story that plays out in the dangerous world of cattle-theft syndicates in the lawless land on the border between Lesotho and South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region.
“Adulting” is set to premiere in the first half of 2023, while the 40-episode epic drama series “Outlaws” is expected to be delivered in the second half of the year.
“Adulting,” Tshedza’s first Showmax Original, is an eight-part drama series set in the parallel universes of four varsity friends. Their strong bond has held them together even as their journeys in life have taken them in very different directions — a bond the show’s creators describe as “the bromance of the decade.”
Tshedza’s second Showmax Original, “Outlaws,” is a cross-cultural love story that plays out in the dangerous world of cattle-theft syndicates in the lawless land on the border between Lesotho and South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region.
“Adulting” is set to premiere in the first half of 2023, while the 40-episode epic drama series “Outlaws” is expected to be delivered in the second half of the year.
- 1/31/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
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