Cape Town became Kapstadt over the weekend when my work week continued into the past weekend doing a set visit, interviews and a roundtable press day with the producers, executives and cast involved with the brilliant German TV drama Deutschland86.
Since my invitation to the DStv Delicious International Food and Music Festival 2017 must have gotten lost in the mail, I went to visit the production of the second season of the German drama series over the weekend that has been filming scenes in Cape Town the past few weeks.
On Saturday Deutschland86 filmed scenes in a building next to Tulbagh Square, just opposite from Burger King and Naspers' Media24 building.
Deutschland86 is the "follow-up" or second part/season of Deutschland83, that is part of a trilogy, with Deutschland86 that will be broadcast in the latter part of 2018, and that will very likely be followed by Deutschland89 and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Of course M-Net viewers saw Deutschland83 on M-Net Edge at the beginning of this year as part of its "best of world series" initiative.
The second season of this acclaimed German spy series created by Anna Winger and Jörg Winger will also be shown on M-Net (DStv 101) next year on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.
The interesting thing is that Deutchland86 is a co-production of AMC Networks' SundanceTV, Amazon, FremantleMedia International and UFA Distribution.
Amazon with its subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service Amazon Prime Video has come on board to make the next season possible and while Deutschland86 will be available on Amazon Prime Video in the rest of the world, M-Net and DStv will continue to show it in South Africa and across Africa.
Deutschland 86 will continue 3 years after the end of the first season (Deutschland83) with the East German secret agent Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) searching for ... a lot of things.
Of course the Stasi agent ends up in Cape Town, as well as in other African countries and of course both sides of Germany's Berlin.
It was really great to hear directly from Anna Winger and Jörg Winger, speaking passionately and interestingly about their show, as well as from SundanceTV, Amazon and FremantleMedia executives about the upcoming season that will roll out in 2018.
Of course one of the interesting parts of this show set in the mid-80's is the whole stylistic and historical aspect of it, and from what I've seen of Deutschland86 it looks arrestingly beautiful, fascinating and is very cleverly done.
It was cool to talk to the cast, producers and the South African director Florian Cossen but to literally say anything now would be spoiling stuff - and there's mega fascinating and big story surprises in store.
When M-Net (DStv 101) schedules Deutschland86 - which will likely be sometime around the latter part of 2018 since the second season is literally filming and in production at the moment - I promise a lot of interesting interviews and insights straight from the set.
"Danke Schön".
