FIRST LOOK. Showmax releases first official trailer for African fantasy drama series Blood Psalms.

by Thinus Ferreira

Showmax has released the first official trailer for its long-gestating 12-episode African fantasy drama series, Blood Psalms, from Yellowbone Entertainment which will make its debut on Showmax on 28 September with weekly episodes.

Blood Psalms which faced several delays mostly due to a lack of promised funding from the South African government in the country's film rebate scheme, was supposed to debut in October 2021, was then moved to February 2022, missed the February 2022 release date, and is finally being released in September 2022 - a year later than originally planned.

Blood Psalms, a R85 million co-production between MultiChoice's video streaming service and Canal+, is touted as the largest and most expensive TV series ever filmed on South African soil.

Filmed in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and North West provinces with a massive cast, the Showmax Original from creators Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T. Qubeka will have its world premiere next Wednesday on 24 August in Cape Town as the opening screening at MIP Africa as part of FAME Week Africa.

Here's the trailer:

Blood Psalms is set in "Ancient Africa" 1 000 years after the fall of Atlantis, the five surviving houses of Kemet find themselves beset with fears of a prophesied end of days. 

Bokang Phelane is Princess Zazi, a teenage princess, with Mothusi Magano as her father, the mad king Letsha. Zolisa Xaluva is General Toka, the head of her father's Akachi army.

The rest of the cast includes Bongile Mantsai, Hamilton Dlamini, Hlubi Mboya, S'dumo Mtshali, Siv Ngesi), Thishiwe Ziqubu, Warren Masemola, Enhle Mbali Mlotshwa, Niza Jay, Richard Lukunku, Sello Maake kaNcube, Thando Thabethe, Thembekile Komani, Zikhona Sodlaka, Faniswa Yisa, Faith Baloyi, Lemogang Tsipa and Thabo Rametsi. 

"Blood Psalms is the biggest and most ambitious series we've ever made, completely unlike any other African series you've ever seen," says Nomsa Philiso, MultiChoice's head of programming, in a prepared press release.

Bokang Phelane says "This show was specifically created as a reimagining of ourselves as Africans, as an answer to ‘Who are we?’ It's done in a very entertaining way, with a lot of drama and action." 

Mothusi Magano in the press release says "Blood Psalms is a heck of a ride and it's never been done before".

"For Africans, mostly, our history goes back 200 years. That's what we've been given, and it's from Western perspectives. We really don't know anything much about our own history. So Blood Psalms poses a lot of questions and will give people a lot to think about."

Sello Maake kaNcube says "One thing that was brilliant for us was no use of an English word, whatsoever. That was a big challenge even for a lot of actors, you know, because most of the time we are used to performing and doing a mixture of African languages and English. This time, the dialogue is purely in African languages."

Layla Swart in the Showmax press release says "What we're trying to do is to reclaim the continent's history from an African perspective".

"Blood Psalms draws from elements of a multitude of African mythologies and looks at various different tribes in season 1 - the Akachi, the Uchawi, the Ku’ua, the Chini, and Great Nziwemabwe - as they migrated south from Kemet, which is now Egypt, and formed their cultures".

ALSO READ: As MultiChoice previews Showmax's Blood Psalms with a first-look viewing in Dubai the South African media take umbrage: 'Share the content with journalists who report on TV content'. 

ALSO READ: Blood Psalms to debut on MultiChoice's Showmax in February 2022, 'It was scary and a massive challenge,' says showrunner Layla Swart.

ALSO READ: MultiChoice's expensive Blood Psalms in jeopardy as a Showmax Original as Yellowbone Entertainment producers are forced to go to court over millions due in unpaid South African film rebates to finish their series.

ALSO READ: Blood Psalms drama series co-produced by Showmax and Canal+ and based on Xhosa legend reveals huge black cast.

2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 3: 'You're not going to work with that hair' - South African women in film share their stories.

by Thinus Ferreira 

Women working in South Africa's film and TV industry shared their shocking anecdotes, challenges and suggestions during a panel session about women in film at the 10th Silwerskermfees - with one producer revealing how a male Canadian cinematographer literally had to be fired recently because he refused to listen or take orders from the female director.  

Kaye Ann Williams, senior manager: M-Net 101 script, reality, films, co-productions, was the moderator of a Women in Film panel discussion at kykNET's 10th Silwerskermfees taking place at The Bay Hotel in Camps Bay, Cape Town, where female panellists in film and TV production shared their experiences of the local industry and how to foster opportunities and embrace challenges.

Kaye Ann Williams said women in South Africa's film and TV industry "often find themselves in a room where you're meant to get a project off the ground and you need to convince everyone that you're credible, that you know what you're talking about".

"Often women think 'Do I belong here? Am I being too bitchy? Am I too loud? How can I be more assertive?' There are all these questions that men don't ask themselves in these spaces, they just go and talk and do what they need to do."

"Female to female mentorship is so extremely important to me in the film industry."

Layla Swart, co-owner and producer of Yellowbone Entertainment doing Blood Psalms for MultiChoice's streamer Showmax, said "my biggest challenge has always been to try and not get into a mindset of being a victim. And often it's hard because often you are - often you are judged, often you are looked at differently, often you are not as trusted as your older or male counterparts."

"I've cried in meetings against my better judgment, fighting against who I actually am all the time until I got to a point where I said to myself I've got to live in the power of being a woman, of being the feminine and knowing what I can contribute to a space or environment or a project."

Screenwriter and director Amy Jephta said if she were to ever write a memoir about her career the title would probably be "Three white men and me". 

"That has always, almost always been the ratio of the spaces and places I find myself in - me and two white guys, me and three white guys".

"The spaces where it's been equal, who look like me - who are black and women - are spaces usually that I've created, it's rooms where I've consciously tried to diversify that. You can never forget your positionality in that room, you can never forget your politics and the politics of your body in that space."

Creating a space for women

Thandi Davids, executive producer at StoryScope and co-chairperson of the Independent Producers Organisation (IPO) said that "at our last big feature doc we had to fire a director of photography who came in from Canada because he refused to take direction from a director. He literally would not listen to her; it was completely astounding."

"It's really important for us to create an enabling environment on every level, and look at bringing women in on every level," she said and noted that on a recent project "We've just tried to find a female composer - you can't find a female composer."

"If you pitch a project, knowing you're going with women, and pitch with a female writer, or pitch with a female director - if this is what your vision is for the project, say you're not going to change that. [Someone says] a male writer will be better. No. No, I want a female writer, I want that voice in the room."

Thandi Davids also shared with delegates a story of how sometimes it's also women - not men - bringing the women down, telling delegates a story dating back to her time when she was working as an executive at FOX and National Geographic now part of Disney, but then still FOX International Channels.

"I went to a meeting with 17 people in the room and I was the only black person and one of only two females."

"And I went to the bathroom and she follows me into the bathroom and she says to me 'I don't think you're going to work with that hair. The hair doesn't work on a global level.' And I said my hair? And she said 'Yes, yes. You're not going to get far in this organisation with your hair like that."

"And I literally had to go at her. Why is my physicality and the way I look such an issue for you? Why are you coming in here and not having a discussion about the difficulty we are having inside that room? You're coming in here to tell me the problem is the way that I look and my hair? What's that about?"

She said it's also important that women don't just open the door for other women but create and change a team to move things forward. "If you're out the door, that idea is out the door. If you're trying to change something, take a team with you, bring people with you so that when you're gone that vision remains."

Vlokkie Gordon, owner and producer of Advantage Entertainment said "I often say the hardest thing is your first three no's."

About getting more women into the industry Kaye Anne Williams said "It can't just be the producers thinking 'I need a female DOP', it needs to be the broadcasters, it needs to be the government institutions, it needs to be training platforms."

"We should all be intentional about filling up those spaces or at least equalising and balancing them out. That's a responsibility we should all bear - it doesn't just lay with AFDA or just the broadcaster."

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees - Day 1: Programme director Ricky Human on the growing need to tell authentic local stories.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskerm Film Festival - Day 2: Showcasing the tenacity of South Africa's film industry.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 2: With South Africa's global co-productions still in infancy, MultiChoice to announce Afrikaans series with Canal+.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 2: Not a white napkin to be found - how South Africa's event industry is starting to bounce back.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 4: M-Net boss Jan du Plessis: 'We're fully committed to growing local film.'

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 4: Number of South Africa's cinema screens to remain flat post-Covid.

ALSO READ: 2022's 10th Silwerskermfees awards: Barakat and Gaia the big winners.  

2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 2: With South Africa's global co-productions still in infancy, MultiChoice to announce Afrikaans series with Canal+.

by Thinus Ferreira 

While South Africa's film and TV co-productions market is still in its infancy, the future for series shot in the country with international partners attached looks promising, with the MultiChoice Group that is set to announce soon that it will be doing a new Afrikaans TV series as a global co-production with France's Canal+.

Nomsa Philiso, the MultiChoice Group's new executive head of programming, who was one of the panellist at 2022's 10th Silwerskermfees in a panel discussion on fostering co-productions, told attendees that while South Africa's film and TV co-productions with other countries are still in its infancy, there is a lot of scope to expand on new partnerships and in new parts of the world.

She said that the idea is to make sure that South Africans go out there and tell their stories as good as anybody else on the world stage.

In terms of what MultiChoice and M-Net are looking for in terms of international co-productions, she says "people tend to bring what they think we like - because it worked last year - but we want to evolve. We don't have all the ideas as the broadcaster - the ideas live in the minds of the people who supply us with content."

"It is them who must take us to the next level in terms of what is out there, what stories are we not telling." 

She said "our stories haven't been told in the manner that we want and we see now that the opportunities exist to leverage on that in a much stronger way."

Kaye Ann Williams, M-Net's head of local content and independent films, said the blue ribbon pay-TV broadcaster is "from a genre perspective definitely looking for crime content but don't get stuck in that - look at sub-genres that could be married to that like comedy, like psychological thrillers, like action".

"The other opportunity for pitching is definitely in the factual space. We know that our premium audience loves documentaries."

"We know that they view them elsewhere and they enjoy it and consume it on our platform as well, so there's definitely an opportunity to go into the high-end factual documentary space, but again it must be very compelling and it must sell."

Allan Sperling, the MultiChoice Group's executive head of physical production, said "an Afrikaans co-production that has been signed and we're going into production within the next few months".

"It is also possible to do Afrikaans international co-productions. We're in partnership with Canal+ who are taking the French rights and the rest of the world will be up for sales and this is where we're looking to recoup and the producer also gets proceeds from that. So it is also possible for Afrikaans shows to become co-productions," he said.

As passionate as possible

Panellist and producer Layla Swart, co-owner of Yellowbone Entertainment producing the fantasy drama series Blood Psalms for MultiChoice's video streaming service Showmax as a co-production with Canal+, said packaging a show for co-production is extremely important.

"Because we're existing in an industry that is in its infancy, we're also trying to figure out what our audiences want, we're trying to figure out what our partners want from us as South African content creators, and often there's an unknown. Everything relies very heavily on how you present yourself and your product."

"It's exhausting and I know it's very difficult at the moment to be a producer. It's a privilege to be able to sit here and to say I've done a co-production," she said.

"I'm acutely aware of how difficult it is to put something together and how difficult also is with co-productions because they take long - bringing partners on, and then aligning a vision, and also aligning finance and business models are not a quick strategy."

"It definitely pays off at the end because your project has scope but it's not an easy process. We can only be as passionate as possible about what we're making, finding the right people to make it, and then package it as well as we can."

With Yellowbone Entertainment which has been struggling with getting the department of trade and industry to pay the promised film rebates for Blood Psalms, Layla Swart said "every producer will say they've been having struggles with the South African government specifically with film rebates and tax incentives".

"Why that is so crucial is because producers are emerging producers."

"Many of us don't have a lot of capital and resources behind us. What the government instruments are there for, is for you as a producer to be able to bring something to the partnership, for you to be able to entice international people to want to work with you, and want to shoot here and want to use our crews and actors and our stories."

"That is the biggest struggle. It's killing our industry to be honest and we're heavily reliant on our broadcasters to such an extent that we feel we can't mobilise anything on our own and I think with the broadcasters being inundated, there's only so much broadcasters can greenlit."

"Our biggest challenge is how do we empower producers and production companies through incentives, that are supposed to be there, to sustain the industry."

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees - Day 1: Programme director Ricky Human on the growing need to tell authentic local stories.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 2: Showcasing the tenacity of South Africa's film industry.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 2: Not a white napkin to be found - how South Africa's event industry is starting to bounce back.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 3: 'You're not going to work with that hair' - South African women in film share their stories.

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 4: M-Net boss Jan du Plessis: 'We're fully committed to growing local film.'

ALSO READ: 2022 10th Silwerskermfees Film Festival - Day 4: Number of South Africa's cinema screens to remain flat post-Covid.

ALSO READ: 2022's 10th Silwerskermfees awards: Barakat and Gaia the big winners.  

MultiChoice Showcase 2021: PICTORIAL. A set of new Blood Psalms stills released as MultiChoice's delayed Showmax Original fantasy series from Yellowbone Entertainment waits to be paid its film rebate.

by Thinus Ferreira

MultiChoice has released some further new provocative images - what in the film biz is called "stills" - of the fantasy drama series Blood Psalms that has been shifted to a February 2022 release on its Showmax video streaming service.

In the fantasy drama series mostly filmed in the Eastern Cape, Zolisa Xaluva plays soldier Toka with Zikhona Sodlaka who plays Sithenjwa and with the two characters who end up marrying each other.

Thando Tabethe plays Heka, a god manifesting as a physical being, with Faith Baloyi as Queen Assilli and the court's advisor with access to magic, while Bokang Pehalane is cast in the role of the teenage Princess Zazi trying to save her people from a world-ending prophecy.

With MultiChoice and Showmax that organised no group media set visits during the filming of Blood Psalms - something that is very unusual for an expensive production of this size - the only imagery for the show will be the set of stills that the show itself took while it filmed on location.

Blood Psalms, written, produced and directed by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka and Layla Swart Najaar from Yellowbone Entertainment, was supposed to start in October on Showmax but was delayed due to an ongoing scandal with South Africa's department of trade, industry and competition.

The department abruptly cancelled its payments of millions of rand that were approved for the making of Blood Psalms in the country's shambolic film rebate scheme that is also impacting on other film productions in the country.

Almost half of the R85 million production cost of Blood Psalms is funded through the film rebate scheme of the department of trade, industry and competition. 

R8 million earmarked to pay for just post-production work on the MultiChoice and Canal+ co-production that has over 300 visual effects artists working on the show, was for instance abruptly cancelled in September. 

Besides this there is still another R16 million payment to be made in a rebate payment by the DTIC once Blood Psalms is fully completed.

The government's film rebates are paid out at specific production milestones with producers getting financial support while they're completing their content: At the start of principal photography, when filming wraps, the start of post-production, and then delivery of the completed video production.

After Yellowbone Entertainment took the government department to court, the DTIC agreed to make requisition for payment within three days but failed to respond to the deadline of the court order.

The DTIC in a statement said that "It would be inappropriate to continue these discussions in the media as the discussions have not yet been concluded and both parties have undertaken to work diligently to conclude outstanding matters. The Yellowbone matter is sub-judice and it would be unlawful to comment."

Jahmil X.T. Qubeka says it was "an embarrassment" to be in Dubai in October with MultiChoice, inviting the world to do business in South Africa and to film productions in the country "when we have not put the mechanisms in place for that to happen".

The multi-million rand series that has been in production for almost 2 years as the largest and most expensive series ever filmed in Africa and produced on South African soil, has already been delayed. 

Candice Fangueiro, Showmax head of content, said the Showmax Original would start in October 2021, although the date came and went. 

MultiChoice then announced to the media flown to Dubai for the media junket that Blood Psalms has now been pushed to February 2022 although it's unclear if this target date for release on Showmax will be met with, the future of the R85 million production that hangs in the balance. 

ALSO READ: MultiChoice's expensive Blood Psalms in jeopardy as a Showmax Original as Yellowbone Entertainment producers are forced to go to court over millions due in unpaid South African film rebates to finish their series.

ALSO READ: Blood Psalms to debut on MultiChoice's Showmax in February 2022, 'It was scary and a massive challenge,' says showrunner Layla Swart.

ALSO READ: As MultiChoice previews Showmax's Blood Psalms with a first-look viewing in Dubai the South African media take umbrage: 'Share the content with journalists who report on TV content'.

ALSO READ: TV CRITIC's NOTEBOOK. 'A Dubai Déjà vu': How MultiChoice and the champagne brigade at its Dubai Expo 2020 jaunt evoked a big-on-partying, small-on-substance media look - again.

Blood Psalms to debut on MultiChoice's Showmax in February 2022, 'It was scary and a massive challenge,' says showrunner Layla Swart.

by Thinus Ferreira

MultiChoice, M-Net and Showmax's 10-episode African mythos series from creative duo Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T Qubeka's Yellowbone Entertainment will debut on Showmax in February 2022 with Jahmil X.T Qubeka who revealed that Blood Psalms will make its debut on the streaming service early next year.

MultiChoice did a "viewing" and panel discussion for Blood Psalms on Tuesday evening in Dubai as part of its Expo 2020 Dubai marketing exercise in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

MultiChoice's inexplicable move to do a first viewing and panel session for Blood Psalms in Dubai, inaccessible to local media, stirred anger and resentment under the South African press corps covering television, upset over the way in which MultiChoice is promoting so-called "homegrown TV series" like Reyka and Blood Psalms outside of South Africa's borders first.

Following Reyka, Blood Psalms as a Showmax Original, is now the second series for which MultiChoice is doing foreign cast and crew panel sessions and previews - and first - but without any similar effort or the same access for series given to local press in South Africa.

Reyka made its debut screening at the Monte Carlo TV festival in Monaco in June where a cast and crew panel session for media and buyers was also held. M-Net did nothing similar in South Africa for the local media with no virtual or in-person media session, and requests to interview the showrunner that were ignored.

For Blood Psalms, MultiChoice decided that Dubai - months before the series' debut date - is more important than South Africa as the show's first stop for a viewing and cast and crew media session.

Ironically, although not unexpected, by Thursday afternoon only one of the media flown by MultiChoice to Dubai to cover its various Dubai Expo 2020 activities like the disappointing 1 Night With Mzansi variety special on Sunday night, have managed to file a report about Tuesday evening's Blood Psalms panel session.

Media flown at great cost to Dubai appeared more interested in sharing multiple lifestyle selfies on Instagram and Twitter about their weeklong MultiChoice-sponsored staycation than about what they went to presumably cover, snapping and sharing images from boat parties, hotel rooms, desert excursions and nightclub afterparties but with little to no reporting about MultiChoice, M-Net, DStv and Showmax and their actual content.

Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T Qubeka were joined in Dubai for MultiChoice's Blood Psalms panel session by cast members Zolisa Xaluva playing soldier Toka, and Zikhona Sodlaka who plays Sithenjwa, with the two characters who end up marrying each other.

Thando Tabethe plays Heka, a god manifesting as a physical being, with Faith Baloyi as Queen Assilli and the court's advisor with access to magic, while Bokang Pehalane is cast in the role of the teenage Princess Zazi trying to save her people from a world-ending prophecy.

Speaking about Blood Psalms in Dubai, Layla Swart said "I knew it was ambitious. I knew it was a longshot. And I knew it was going to be very difficult to present to any finance partner something so novel - something so, that has never been done before."

"We really fought to do it in vernac(ular language). The space of such a high-end production is also a space that we hope will be received internationally and globally and that often means that it needs to be in a language that is accessible."

"But I'm proud that we fought for that and I'm proud of the product that we've created. Jahmil and I have this saying of you must never be fearless but you must fear less. I think that really encapsulates what Blood Psalms was to us."

"It was scary, it was a massive challenge. We didn't know how we would do it. And I mean, every step was a challenge but we feared less."

Jahmil X.T Qubeka during Tuesday evening's panel discussion remarked that it's very important to have heroes "but because of our turbulent past, black South Africans don't have that. We don't have archetypes that we can hold onto."

"We've got Shaka. Maybe a few here or there. But you know what I mean. I talk in the contemporary space. It's very important that we see ourselves in projections - not just in our current situation, but in our possibility. And for me really that was the main mission: It's to bring back heroes again."

ALSO READ: As MultiChoice previews Showmax's Blood Psalms with a first-look viewing in Dubai the South African media take umbrage: 'Share the content with journalists who report on TV content'.

ALSO READ: TV REVIEW. MultiChoice and M-Net's 1 Night with Mzansi special done from Dubai is little more than boring puffery and yawnful paint-by-numbers programmatic content.

ALSO READ: MultiChoice and M-Net prep a 2-hour 1 Night with Mzansi live variety TV special for DStv subscribers on Sunday 17 October from the Dubai Opera House.

Blood Psalms drama series co-produced by Showmax and Canal+ and based on Xhosa legend reveals huge black cast.

by Thinus Ferreira

MultiChoice is revealing more about its recently announced new local drama Blood Psalms, inspired by a Xhosa legend, that will be a co-production between its Showmax video streaming service and Canal+ and that will tell the story of a fierce African queen, Zazi, who battles a world-ending prophecy to navigate her people through complexities, politics and endless wars.

The 10-episode Blood Psalms that will be shown on Showmax in 2021 features a sprawling cast of more than 50 black actors and actresses and is filmed in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and North West provinces in South Africa.

The sprawling cast includes names ranging from Albert Ibokwe Khoza, Sello Maake Ka Ncube, Thando Thabethe, Enhle Mbali Mlotshwa and Faith Baloyi to Siv Ngesi, Hlubi Mboya, Warren Masemola and many more.




The creative producers duo Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T Qubeka who are the co-owners of Yellowbone Entertainment are the brains behind the series.

Layla Swart says "Every one of the actors selected brings their own unique ability to authentically translate this magical epic onto screen".

"The goal, for us, is to ensure that the golden thread of Africa’s stunning history really shines. The story of Blood Psalms not only entertains but also contributes to the preservation of African culture and languages as authentically told by Africans, to be enjoyed by the world."

Yolisa Phahle, MultiChoice Group CEO for general entertainment and connected video, says "This massive co-production highlights Showmax’s commitment to its subscribers. This is epic, authentic, original African storytelling like never before".

"As Africa’s most-loved storyteller, the partnership with Canal+ also means more people will see this series, and we are thrilled to be working with Canal+ on this groundbreaking show."

Fabrice Fabrice Faux, chief content officer of Canal+ International, says "We are very pleased to partner with Showmax for the coproduction of Blood Psalms".

"This African story, inspired by a Xhosa legend, will carry our viewers into mythological and epic adventures. With an outstanding directing and production team and a talented cast, Blood Psalms promises to be a big phenomenon that will resonate in all of Africa and internationally."

Here is the Blood Psalms cast list:

• Albert Ibokwe Khoza - Madlamini, Zazi’s Governess
• Andile Nebulane - King Ntuka
• Awethu Hleli - Ilitye
• Ayanda Daweti - Pee-Erot
• Ayanda Makayi - Kike
• Bokang Phelane - Princess Zazi
• Bongile Mantsai - Hlengu
• Chuma Sopotela - the Crazed Uchawi Witchdoctor
• Daniel Hadebe - Pangool
• Enhle Mbali Mlotshwa – Umna
• Faith Baloyi - Queen Assilli
• Faniswa Yisa - Mother Superior, Keeper of Ancient Secrets
• Hamilton Dlamini - Qotha
• Harry Imoru - Akachi Soldier
• Hlubi Mboya - Ndiya Zazi
• Hybre Taljaard – Serpentine Elemental 2
• Khanya Mkangisa - Heka Nymph
• Khayakazi Kula - Ncedisa
• Khulu Skhenjana - Mahlathini, The Main Guard
• Lemogang Tsipa - Xhosa, a young warrior
• Lukhanyo Sikwebu - Akachi Soldier
• Luyolo Mngonyama - Serpentine Elemental
• Mandisa Nduna - Burruti
• Mocheko J Nkoana - the Blind Clown
• Mothusi Makgano plays King Letsha
• Niza Jay - Teborah an Uchawi Prince
• Richard Lukunku - the mysterious Senator Jabari
• Sdumo Mtshali - Commander Lekoya
• Sello Maake Ka Ncube – King Letsha’s uncle, Nkamanzu
• Sello Motloung - the Ancient Monarch
• Sibusiso Kotelo - Akachi Soldier
• Simbarashe Gozo - Black Horus
• Siv Ngesi - Onyo, Lord of the Netherworld
• Soso Rungqu – Lala, the wife of Qotha
• Stevel Marc - Akachi Soldier
• Thabo Rametsi - Ahadi
• Thando Thabethe - God Heka
• Thandy Matlaila - Nonceba
• Thembekile Komani plays Mzinzi the Overseer, son of Mother Superior
• Thishiwe Ziqubu - Kuthala
• Tumie Ngumla - Thozama
• Unathi Platyi - Nyadenga
• Vangile Zwakala - Chini Child
• Vusi Thanda - Chief Xemantsu
• Warren Masemola - Mfengetho, Royal Aide
• Zikhona Sodlaka - Sithenjwa, Mistress to the Great Senator of Nziwemabe
• Zolisa Xaluva - General Toka