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VIGILAUNTIES

high

flyers

CRUST

Doekom

strange

love

SUID

MYKONOS

the september girls

8 x 30’ Crime Comedy

When three Cape Flats Aunties accidentally rescue a stolen ​vehicle, they become overnight community vigilantes who have ​to chase down many clues to clear their names,  go undercover ​and ultimately shut down an abalone syndicate running out of ​their nemesis’ pharmacy and impacting the

entire community.

Media portrayal of the Cape Flats is often from the same perspective of ​the gangster-fleeing, better-life-seeking young men. In reality, the Cape ​Flats is filled with character, story and humour amidst survival. The ​fishing community, limited permits and the desperation to survive is ​shown in VigilAunties as we uncover the illegal abalone trade. The ​generations of mothers, Aunties and the children of those Aunties are ​all involved in this fun investigative whodunnit series that emphasises ​the strong bonds we all have with the matriarchs who raised us.

Not many current shows include this demographic and age of women, ​certainly not as the leads and not more than one or two Aunties in the ​entire show and yet they’re the glue of our society. The aunties who are ​loyal to their TVs surely deserve an opportunity to be on TV themselves!

*Durban Talents Official Selection 2024

**Current Producing Partner: Blended Films

Think GOOD GIRLS, POKERFACE and SMUGGLERS

10 x 30’ Queer Comedy Drama

Headstrong, heartbreak-allergic Canadian, Vea, arrives in Cape Town ​having moved for “work”, but really it’s to win back an escaped ex’s heart. ​Her obsession with this transgender heartthrob DJ causes her to plunge ​into a sexy polyamorous community that teaches Vea how to receive and ​reciprocate the love(s) she deserves.

STRANGE LOVE explores the challenges that arise from relationship conflicts in a web ​of sexually and romantically involved characters, each of whom want someone(s) to ​love, but need to learn to love themselves better.

Forged from our own hilarious and heartbreaking experiences as creators, STRANGE ​LOVE offers up a collective of beautiful, flawed characters opening up questions and ​opening up their hearts, clashing against themselves, each other and even the labels ​they've carefully chosen to affirm their identities, pursuing the love(s) they think they ​need for fulfilment. And then fucking, fighting, failing, and learning that they need to ​understand and embody their unique authentic love before they can go off searching ​for it. To poach from RuPaul's iconic motto, "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell ​you gonna love somebody else?"

*NFVF x CMF Co-Development Fund in 2024

**Attached writers include acclaimed Canadian showrunner Fab Filippo (‘Sort Of’), ​Quanita Adams (‘Hier.Na’) and Céline Tshika (Jess Goes West)

**Current producing partners are Fae Pictures (CAN) and Blended Films (SA).

Think INSECURE meets PLEASE LIKE ME

8 x 45’ Crime Drama

When an Elsies River teen is murdered by a drug-running goon, two ​women – a demoted cowgirl cop and an imperilled by-the-book narc – ​team up to tear down a high-flying airport syndicate.

The title of this show is intentionally ironic. While ‘low-level’ crimes are solved ​one way or another in each episode, across season one, our grounded beat ​cops uncover an untouchable, high-level criminal with sights set on Cape ​Town International. In turn, our cowboy-stickler duo are eventually offered ​the position of High-Flyers themselves, a special unit working to bring down ​said network across the borders of ongoing spatial Apartheid and the ​boundaries of precincts.

Part suspenseful buddy-cop drama and part high-level criminal procedural, ​High Flyers offers intriguing underworlds tempered against the backdrop of ​a long, cruel summer. Its two Cappy's are equipped with the grit and wry ​sense of humour of Mare in Mare of Eastown, the warmth and ​groundedness of Happy Valley's Catherine Cawood, and the dauntlessness of ​Danvers and Navarro in True Detective: Night Country. Together for better or ​worse, they doggedly pursue justice even if they know it might not be served ​hot.

*Ian Gabriel (Four Corners) is the director-producer on the project

*Current producing partner: Tshepiso Phiri, Known Associates Ent.

Think MARE OF EASSTOWN, HAPPY VALLEY, and TRUE DETECTIVE S4

Feature Film

When long-married but newly-in-love couple, Lynne and Michael ​Februarie, summon their adult kids and their families for a nostalgic ​holiday at Club Mykonos, everyone hopes for an overdue divorce ​announcement. However, grown-up sibling silliness and squabbles ​following the near-loss of their not-entirely-lucid grandmother give way ​to a cataclysmic lunch at which multiple incriminating family secrets are ​revealed, rudely awakening old wounds and causing new ones within ​and across generations. Ultimately, the revelation that Lynne and ​Michael had in fact gathered everyone to renew their wedding vows is ​threatened by the latest slew of betrayals and the fractured family is ​challenged to cross the battlefield of drunken honesty if they wish to ​ever arrive at the healing they’ve all been longing for. Finally, it’s the ​youngest grandchild who, in facing her fears by performing bravely at ​the resort’s talent competition, inspires Lynne and Michael to model ​new habits to bring the stubborn but hard-loving family together again.

A family comedy-drama that celebrates honesty and unconventionality with ​core themes of inter-generational healing. Suid Mykonos features a kooky ​family and an equally weird location as the landscape for a heartful and ​authentic South African family story that will attract South African audiences ​familiar with its nostalgic locale and unique cultural nuances and global ​audiences, drawn to its universal themes of radical honesty, belonging and ​family love.

*Current producing partner: Roelof Storm, Wolflight Films

Think MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, MAMMA MIA, and LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

6 x 45’ Satirical Family Drama

Years after being shunned by her family, 26-year-old outcast Alinaswe ​inherits her murdered father’s seaside restaurant, home to the ​secrets and scandals of Cape Town’s elite.

CRUST is a glossy, fun-feeling family drama with tasteful hints of crime and ​satire set on the idyllic coast of Cape Town, where the tourism industry and ​the crime syndicates compete as the most lucrative economy drivers. ​Hence, where there is beauty, darkness lurks. And where there is darkness, ​so there are rich people doing rich things. Like billionaires dying to see the ​Titanic, Crust’s satire is drawn from the absurdity of its subjects and the ​lengths they go to for privilege and power.

In Crust, self-deception is the catch of the day and shady

underworld danger ripped from actual, stranger-than-fiction Cape Town ​headlines is the dish served by the consequences of its citizens’ choices. As ​in Ozark, this untapped criminal underbelly offers opportunity to a broken ​family that must stitch itself together - missing parts and all - to survive.

*REALNESS INSTITUTE x NETFLIX Episodic Lab i2023

**Development spear-headed by Anakle Films’ Mimi Bartels.

Think TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, WHITE LOTUS and THE MENU

When six modern-day Cape Town school girls discover the true ​story of slain Apartheid-era whistleblower, Dulcie September, ​they band together to write her into history by having her story ​officially instated into the national curriculum, all the while ​finding themselves through different versions of the historic ​freedom fighter they each re-imagine.

The September Girls turns the classic biopic format on its head by ​exploring the true life story of struggle hero Dulcie September through ​the adoring but complex eyes of a group of girls exhuming her in ​present day South Africa. The story both appeals to and draws from ​the increasingly progressive Gen Z viewers, not only for its content — ​the personal lives of the six kids whose homes, hearts, and heroism ​bring joy and drama in not always equal measure — but also for its ​style, with Magical Realism employed to reimagine Dulcie through ​multiple lenses, all wonderfully skewed by each child’s own hopes and ​dreams.

Think BREAKFAST CLUB meets JOJO RABBIT

6 x 25’ Supernatural Dark Comedy

Millennial Lynne buys a home in District Six only to find it already occupied by ​Ruby, a stubborn 73-year-old ghost who refused to leave during Apartheid’s ​forced removals and certainly won’t be moved now. When Lynne performs a ​cleansing ritual to push Ruby out, she accidentally opens a rift, spilling a host of ​other ghosts into the neighbourhood. Now she and Ruby must ghost-bust to ​stop an Apartheid-era ghoul from possessing the city.

Some ghosts are innocuous and simply want to be around their family, witness the ​deaths of their loved ones or the births of great- great grandchildren. Some want ​justice, their bones to be buried, their names to be known. Others – the dangerous ​kind – are the ghouls from our violent past that still cast their sinister spectres over our ​present and must be banished so that they don’t haunt our future.

As a hybrid team of queer film makers with mixed heritages, we are intimately ​concerned with issues related to identity, belonging, and our haunted pasts. As evident ​in South Africa, even the brightness of the rainbow nation can’t banish the revenants of ​history. We believe we need to grapple with the ghosts of our pasts if we want to truly ​be set free. As such, we offer this foes-to-friends ghost comedy helmed by an unlikely ​duo who become hell-bent on releasing or banishing Cape Town's ghoulies and ​having a ton of fun doing it.

Think GET OUT, THEY CLONED TYRONE, and GHOSTBUSTERS