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I can exclusively break the news that pay TV broadcaster M-Net's new telenovela TV series for the Mzansi Magic channel (DStv 107) - produced by Urban Brew Studios - is named Inkaba and will start late in March on the channel, running for four days per week from Monday to Thursday with a cast of 17 including veteran TV stars such as John Kani over the course of 208 episodes.
Originally having the working title of Pride and Desire, the telenovella with a year's worth of episodes, will be called Inkaba and will be set in modern day Johannesburg in rich and poor suburbs centered around two fashion houses similar to The Bold and the Beautiful.
Tragedy recently struck the production with the death of actor Muzi ''Clive'' Mgwenya whose role has to be recast.
The telenovela will incorporate several flashback scenes set in the former lives of the characters. These flashbacks to the 1980s decade will occur in especially the first few episodes to give exposition to the earlier lives of some of the now older Inkaba characters.
Asked about the telenovela a while ago, M-Net today - without revealing the title or particular specific details - answered questions about the limited-run soap opera which M-Net called ''Mzansi Magic's biggest investment over the past and upcoming financial years''.
ALSO READ: Mzansi Magic working on a telenovela with the working title Desire.
Insiders called the story ''epic'' and ''a truly South African multi-generational tale'' saying that viewers will be pulled in ''by the interplay between rich and poor, the aspirational values of the fashion set and the tension that comes from the dynamic between parents, their children, and everyone's professional lives and dreams''.
M-Net said that Mzansi Magic is ''currently in pre-production for the telenovela which will launch on-air in March 2012'' (insiders mentioned a late March launch for Inkaba). Last year M-Net also put out a commissioning brief for a soap together with the telenovela, but said ''the channel is still finalising its strategy for long-running series, which will inform the way forward in terms of production and broadcasting of local soaps and telenovellas''.
Asked what the biggest challenges has been so far for these newly commissioned local programming and why Mzansi Magic is doing this, M-Net said the biggest challenge has been ''top explore all options to ensure that productions strengthen the channel's content proposition and schedule. It's also very important to ensure that each component in the big production machine is top notch - from the script, to casting, set design and other production components.''
''Schedule stability has been a key area of business for the channel over the past year,'' says M-Net, saying that Inkaba ''has all the ingredients to keep viewers hooked four nights in a row over a long period.
Inkaba and the new upcoming 8th season of Idols are the top programming priorities for Mzansi Magic, although Mzansi Magic has also put out a commissioning brief for a local reality show the channel would like to put on air. ''We are always busy exploring the best programming for the channel.''
Inkaba will have a limited run similar to South America soap operas and will be 208 episodes of 24 minutes each to fill a half hour per day from Mondays to Thursdays for a year. Inkaba episodes will be recorded about a month in advance. ''The telenovela will be filmed in studio with a small portion of material being shot on location''. The cast is at 17 people, including the main and secondary cast. ''There are a large number of featured extra roles and smaller cameo parts over and above this,'' says M-Net of Inkaba.
''The sets are possibly some of the most innovative elements of the show as they offer 360 degree shooting in a studio as opposed to the 'flat' tradisional way of shooting.''
M-Net says Inkaba has been created ''in such a way that we can retain our older audiences but also attract younger viewers''.