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Fasten your seat belts! The African streamer Showmax and Canal+ are getting ready to hit the pedals.
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 spinnerswhich The Hollywood reporter is exclusively revealing.
The company’s third co-production, set in Cape Town in South Africa, became the first African show to compete in the CanneSeries main competition.
spinners follows Ethan (Cantona James), a 17-year-old gang-working driver who tries to support his younger brother and discovers a possible way out of gang life: spinning, an extreme motorsport in which drivers perform breathtaking 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 and murder); Dillon Windbird (Blood and water); Brendon Daniels (Zulu, five fingers for Marseille), who won the South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Four corners; Dan Jacques Mouton (Arendsvlei, Name My Skollie); David Isaacs (co-creator of Joe Barber); and Katlego Lebogang (Wounds).
In May, James won Best Performance honors at the first Dakar Series event, where spinners also won Best TV Series and Best Editing (for Andrea Shaw and Matthew Swanepoel).
The African film industry will have the chance to watch the first episode of spinners on September 4, opening night of MIP Africa. The drama will then premiere in Sub-Saharan Africa on Showmax on November 8, with new episodes debuting on Wednesdays for the rest of the year. It will also launch on Canal+ in Africa on November 13.
Directed by: Jaco Bouwer (Gaia), which won the SAFTA for Best TV Drama for Directing 4 walls, the English/Cape/Afrikaans-language series is co-created by producer Joachim Landau and showrunner Benjamin Hoffman of Empreinte Digitale. It is co-produced by Ramadan Suleman (Zulu love letter, fools) from Natives at Large, spinnerslocal co-production company. DJ Ready D is the music supervisor and also composed tracks for the series.
StudioCanal handles international sales for the series, which had its South African premiere at the Silwerkserm Film Festival on Friday.
In a recent interview with THRpraised Showmax CEO Yolisa Phahle spinners because it made its way into the CanneSeries competition and became “the first African series to actually be selected, alongside massive productions from Hulu and HBO and everyone else.”
“Spinning is making art with your car,” says James. “Getting into a donut, making a figure eight, people hanging outside a car as it spins, standing on top of a car… it’s just exciting.”
Opponent Thomas knew everything about the extreme sport from her childhood. “Spinning has always been a big part of the culture in Cape Town, on the Cape Flats,” she said. “I grew up in Kraaifontein and all my childhood I went to the field on Sundays. That would be where all the cars gathered to turn. And I’ve only seen men spinning. So when I started the job spinnersonly then did I learn that women now actually dominate the sport. spinners show another side of it: it shows the passion, the drive, the adrenaline. I am therefore happy that the rest of the world can see what our people stand for.”
Watch the trailer for spinners below.