Production started this week on action-drama Spinners in Cape Town, South Africa. The 8 x 50’ premium CANAL+ ORIGINAL series is a co-production between African streaming service Showmax and CANAL+.
Produced by Joachim Landau and Raphaël Rocher for Empreinte Digitale and co-produced by Ramadan Suleman, "Spinners’" local co-production company is Natives at Large, created by Locarno, Amiens and FESPACO winner Suleman, a South African full-service film and TV production outfit.
Directed by Jaco Bouwer and produced and co-created by Joachim Landau, "Spinners’" showrunner and co-creator Benjamin Hoffman is joined by SAFTA-winning writers Matthew Jankes, Sean Steinberg, Gillian Breslin, Daniel Zimbler, Byron Abrahams and Zoë Laband. The English/Kaaps/Afrikaans drama is co-produced by Ramadan Suleman. The cast member list includes Cantona James and Chelsea Thomas in leading roles, as well as Brendon Daniels and local celebrity Dillon Windvogel. DJ Ready D, the South African hip hop Legend and Cape Town based artist, is tasked with directing and composing tracks for the series.
"Spinners" focuses on the South African motor sport of Spinning, which sees cars driven at high speed with drivers performing stunts in and out of the vehicle. Ethan is a 17-year-old driver working for a local gang, run with an iron fist by Damien. Trying to support his younger brother but increasingly disgusted with this life and constantly on the edge, Ethan discovers a possible way out via spinning, an intense local sport where he could put his driving skills to use. But the looming gang war jeopardizes that hope.
Since 2018, Canal+ has produced 13 original series in different African countries with African talent, such as "Invisibles," "Agent," "Cacao," "Dead Places," "Mami Wata Le Mystere D'iveza" and "Eki." The company hopes to bump up its title production count to ten per year.