WHEN Cape Town housewife Christelle Smit discovers evidence her husband is having an affair with a stripper named Candi Floss, her investigation takes her to a world poles apart from the Northern Suburbs utopia she knows. Koek stars SAFTA and Silwerskerm winner Cindy Swanepoel in her first Showmax Original, and the stacked cast includes screen legends Sandra Prinsloo and Dawid Minnaar. The crime comedy premieres on 29 February, with new episodes on Thursdays.
“This is the story of a woman who has to lose everything in order to find herself,” says SAFTA- and Silwerskerm-winning showrunner Christiaan Olwagen, whose previous series, Recipes for Love and Murder, has now sold to more than 90 countries, and whose film Kanarie was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Limited Release.
Swanepoel (pictured above), who won SAFTA and Silwerskerm awards last year as Annelize in Binnelanders, stars as Christelle, with screen legend Sandra Prinsloo as the brandy-drinking, cigar-smoking, leopard-print-loving, and kidney-stealing mob boss she’s soon in debt to.
Koek shot largely in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, including doubling Lush, an adult entertainment club, as the fictional Koeksusters. Lush gave the cast dance training and guidance to make Koeksusters feel as authentic as possible.
The trailer gives us glimpses of the cast, which includes Silwerskerm winners Stian Bam (The Story of Racheltjie de Beer), Jacques Bessenger (Donkerbos), Dawid Minnaar (Legacy) and Carel Nel (Gaia), as well as SAFTA nominees Ashley de Lange (G.I.L.) and Vinette Ebrahim (Barakat, Skemerdans). There’s even a cameo from rapper Jack Parow, who also contributes new music to the soundtrack.
“Sandra and Dawid usually play the upstanding nice guys, but they play bad really well,” says director and DOP Johannes Pieter Nel. Nel won Best Cinematography at Silwerskerm last year for Die Tragiese Saak van Pamina Vermaak, and also helmed Magda Louw, which won Desiré Gardner the award for Best Actor in a Comedy at the same awards. “We’re putting well-known actors into fresh and risqué roles that are going to shock and amuse our audience; they’re in for a treat.”
Produced by Wolflight Films, Koek is the latest in a string of critically acclaimed Afrikaans crime shows on the streamer, building on the success of Donkerbos, which cracked Berlinale Series Market Selects; Spinners, which became the first African series at Canneseries; and Trompoppie, about a team of high school cheerleaders who keep turning up dead.
