EXCLUSIVE: French American actor Saïd Taghmaoui (Wonder Woman, The Forgiven) has signed with Buchwald for representation.
05.02.2022 - 00:01 / variety.com
Guy Lodge Film CriticAs a perennially popular international filming location — its varied landscapes standing in for everywhere from the Sahara to the French Riviera — South Africa has provided the anonymous backdrop for many a slick big-budget action thriller over the years. Rarer are films from the country’s own industry that aspire to equivalent commercial thrills, which lends Cape Town-based writer-director Travis Taute’s debut feature “Indemnity” a certain bracing novelty that counters its more generic qualities.
Joining a PTSD-afflicted firefighter on the run after being framed for the murder of his wife, Taute’s diverting film punches well above its modestly budgeted weight in terms of propulsive, literally incendiary action scenes — but is on less sure footing with a narrative that lurches from lean fugitive drama to overworked conspiracy nightmare. A far stricter edit could have solved a number of problems in this unevenly paced and, at 124 minutes, significantly overlong film, which is both slow to get going and repetitive in its denouement.
“Indemnity’s” far fleeter middle section, however, is both a clear glimpse of the tense, tidy 90-minute exercise it could have been, and an enticing calling card for Taute himself. Hitherto best known for the Netflix series “Blood & Water,” he shows enough directorial style and athleticism here to handle a more expensive production with more moving parts.His writing leaves somewhat more to be desired, when it comes to both the film’s rather flat, declarative dialogue (“I have proof of a huge government conspiracy,” a character declares early on) and its halting, occasionally murky storytelling.
EXCLUSIVE: French American actor Saïd Taghmaoui (Wonder Woman, The Forgiven) has signed with Buchwald for representation.
EXCLUSIVE: 101 Studios (Yellowstone), Above the Line Productions (Official Secrets), Campfire Studios (WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn) and Pzaj (Camp Hideout) are teaming up on a feature documentary about the corruption within global soccer organization FIFA.
South African rapper Riky Rick has died aged 34, his family have confirmed.
European studio Mediawan has signed a strategic partnership with Death of Stalin producer Laurent Zeitoun and Gregory Ouanhon’s nascent creative studio Good Hero to co-develop and produce high-end international TV shows and feature films.
Leigh Francis’s deliberately repulsive alter ego Keith Lemon is one of the silliest, most tedious people on television. So he is an entirely appropriate host on E4’s very silly, and rather tedious, new show, The Real Dirty Dancing.
These movies have gone to the dogs, cats and horses! While human actors often receive top billing when it comes to filmmaking, their adorable animal costars frequently steal the spotlight.
Jamie Lang Keshet International has boarded Darrel Bristow-Bovey and Anton Visser’s South African series “Paradys,” selected as a finalist for next month’s Series Mania Co-Pro Pitching Sessions. Keshet international joins Quizzical Pictures as a production partner and will handle global distribution of the finished series.Described as a “tense, character-driven murder mystery,” the series is based on Orania, a real city in South Africa where, 25 years after apartheid, segregation still holds strong.
The world of “The Boys” is expanding.
The Boys universe gets eight distinct new looks in the latest glimpse at Prime Video’s spinoff animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical.
Christopher Vourlias A quirky, colorful murder mystery set in the South African outback will be served up in “Recipes for Love and Murder,” which premieres its first two episodes Feb. 15 as part of the Berlinale Series Market Selects lineup at the European Film Market.Based on the best-selling novels by Sally Andrew, the series follows recipe advice columnist Tannie Maria and her colleague, rookie journalist Jessie September, who spring into action when a woman who was seeking advice about an abusive husband is found dead.Between cooking rich mutton curry and decadent chocolate cake, answering letters, and getting in the way of the local policemen, Maria and Jessie are determined to solve this murder mystery and catch the killer.
Christopher Vourlias Known Associates Entertainment, the production company behind the South African adaptation of the Colombian telenovela that inspired “Ugly Betty,” is planning to break ground on a Hollywood-style film studio outside Johannesburg that will boost capacity in one of the world’s hottest shooting locations.Cradle Film Studios will be built across the road from the Cradle of Humankind, a sprawling archaeological site where traces of some of the earliest humans were discovered.Comprising state-of-the-art studios and backlots, a data center, an innovation hub, and a housing development, the complex will be located 30 miles from Johannesburg and just 10 minutes from an international airport. It will also include a theme park that takes its inspiration from the world-renowned fossil site.
Christopher Vourlias Peter Nadermann’s Nadcon Film and South African genre specialists Gambit Films (“Indemnity”) are teaming up to adapt a trilogy of best-selling crime thrillers, Variety can reveal.The “Revenge Trilogy” is based on the Cape Town-set novels from South African author Mike Nicol. The books will be adapted for screen by Gambit’s Daryne Joshua and will be produced by Gambit Films and Nadcon Film in cooperation with ZDF Enterprises, which co-owns Nadcon.The story begins with ex-gun-runners Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso, who made an illicit fortune while part of the struggle against Apartheid but are now at the helm of a private security company, trying to settle into a comfortable life in Cape Town.
EXCLUSIVE: AMC Networks’ Shudder has picked up South African supernatural horror Good Madam (Mlungu Wam) and is planning a release in late 2022.
From the mind of acclaimed director and cinematographer (“Peter and the Farm,” “Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America”). Tony Stone comes “TED K,” a bracing, cinematic journey into the tortured mind of The Unabomber.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“Kompromat,” an anticipated spy thriller directed by Jerome Salle (“Zulu,” “L’Odyssée”) with Gilles Lellouche (“The Stronghold”) and Joanna Kulig (“Cold War”), has been sold by SND to distributors in key territories. Inspired by a true story, “Kompromat” stars Lellouche as a French diplomat working Siberia who discovers he is being framed by FBI and has to find his way out of the trap.
EXCLUSIVE: Sarena Khan and Andra Gordon’s Athena Pictures and Starlings Television, led by Chris Philip, have teamed with Propagate Content’s Ben Silverman to co-produce Shadowland, a female-driven wildlife crime thriller series, from Jacqui Barcos, director Darnell Martin (American Rust, The Good Lord Bird) and executive producer Peter Elkoff (Sons of Anarchy, Chance).