Stream of the Day
‘Koek’ comes to Showmax
You can have your Koek and watch it as Cindy Swanepoel and Sandra Prinsloo star in this dark comedy series.
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.
“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 says of Koek, the new Showmax Original series streaming from today (29 February 2024). His previous series, Recipes for Love and Murder, has now sold to more than 90 countries, and his film Kanarie was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Limited Release.
Cindy Swanepoel, who won SAFTA and Silwerskerm awards last year as Annelize in Binnelanders, stars in Koek as Christelle, with screen legend Sandra Prinsloo as the brandy-drinking, cigar-smoking, leopard-print-loving, and kidney-stealing mob boss to whom she’s soon in debt.
“Cindy delivers the performance of her life: she’s beautiful, she’s funny, she’s sad, and she’s sexy,” says Christiaan. “You really feel for her.”
The admiration is mutual.
“I have also always wanted to do something involving Christiaan Olwagen and to play a leading role in a series that is so original, and different, and daring was such a massive privilege for me,” says Cindy. “It’s something we haven’t seen in this country yet.”
The crime comedy 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 first glimpses of the stacked 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 rare 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 premieres on Showmax today (29 February 2024), with new episodes on Thursdays until 2 May 2024.
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.
