Fashioning Modern Africanism

The Showmax Original follows Thea Pretorius, the mother of Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren, who murdered his 25-year-old girlfriend Andrea Venter in front of her neighbours, security guards and CCTV cameras. He then escaped authorities in South Africa and Brazil for years, assuming three different identities and starting families with multiple women. After initially helping him escape, Thea slowly had to come to terms with her son being a killer. As she admits in the trailer, “He’s capable of worse things.” With  Sarie 's Marteli Brewis   hailing the true-crime documentary as “poignant” and Cape Talk's Sara-Jayne King praising it as “absolutely gripping viewing."  F ormer South African Police Service head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne worked on hundreds of murder cases but says in the true-crime documentary, “This was definitely one of the more brutal ones that I’ve seen…  This was definitely in the realm of what we regard as overkill.” He says Andrea’s story shows how hard it

Early reviews are glowing. Cape Talk’s Sara-Jayne Makwala King calls the Showmax Original “edge-of-your-seat” and “jaw-dropping”, adding, “Rosemary’s Hitlist is easily the most gripping crime story since Devilsdorp…” Ndlovu was sentenced in 2021 to six concurrent life terms for the murders of six members of her family, including her sister and the father of her only living child at the time. They were murdered for killsurance: funeral cover payouts worth over R1.4 million to Ndlovu.  Ndlovu was also sentenced to an additional 30 years: 10 years each for fraud, incitement to commit murder, and the attempted murder of her mother, Maria Mushwana, her sister Joyce, and Joyce’s five children.  Watch the Rosemary’s Hitlist trailer:  Rosemary’s Hitlist  is produced by IdeaCandy, the company behind the SAFTA-winning true-crime sensation  Devilsdorp , and directed by Valen’tino Mathibela (the first season of  The Real Housewives of Durban, Lebo M - Coming Home ), with SAFTA winner Richard Grego

Rosemary’s Hitlist  is produced by IdeaCandy, the company behind the SAFTA-winning true-crime sensation  Devilsdorp , and directed by Valen’tino Mathibela (the first season of  The Real Housewives of Durban, Lebo M - Coming Home ), with SAFTA winner Richard Gregory ( Steinheist ) as a consulting director.    A trail of killings. One beneficiary.  On 12 October 2015, Ndlovu’s live-in lover, Yingwani Maurice Mabasa, the father of her only living child at the time, went missing. Three days later, his body was found in  Olifantsfontein -  with 76 stab wounds. Mabasa had 16 policies in his name, totalling over R400 000 - and Ndlovu was the beneficiary of all of them… These weren’t the first payouts from suspicious deaths to Ndlovu. She was eventually sentenced in 2021 to six concurrent life terms for the murders of not only Mabasa but also five of her family members: her sister, two nephews, a niece and a cousin. Together, their killsurance was worth over R1.4 million to Ndlovu.  Ndlovu was

T he first Showmax Original true-crime series,  Devilsdorp,  launched on Thursday, 29 July 2021 to five-star reviews, topping Showmax’s SA Top 20 and setting a new record for the most hours watched in its first four days of launch of any film or series ever on Showmax - outperforming the likes of  Game of Thrones, The Real Housewives of Durban  and  The River .  Social media has been buzzing about  Devilsdorp  all weekend, with Khaya Dlanga  tweeting , “ This is the wildest, craziest and most unbelievable South African documentary I have ever seen. And to think these events happened in a small town from 2012 to 2016?! Wild!   #Devilsdorp ” and  Rapport  editor Waldimar Pelser taking to  Facebook  to proclaim, “ Devilsdorp  is one of the best crime documentaries I have ever seen. There are some good cops in our country, too.” Watch the trailer for   Devilsdorp,  which was directed by David Enright and produced by IdeaCandy below: The four-part docu-series investigates the 11 Krugersdorp