African Noir series Acts of Man receives first KIC Group Award

The US$10,000 investment in Acts of Man is the first of the group's endeavours to support coproductions between Canada and South Africa.

Coproduction co-venture the KIC Group has awarded an initial investment of US$10,000 (C$13,817) to South-African crime-fiction series Acts of Man (8 x 60 minutes).

The investment was announced at South Africa’s 2024 Durban FilmMart on July 22, where the series was presented during the Durban FilmMart Pitch and Finance Forum.

Announced during the Cannes Film Festival in May, the KIC Group was formed between two Toronto-based prodcos, Inner City Films (ICF) and Circle Blue Entertainment (CBE), and the South African film production company Known Associates Group.

KIC Group’s mission is to support emerging talent within the African entertainment sector and develop financing models and coproductions between Canada and South Africa.

“We are working with diverse groups both in front and behind the camera from Canada, South Africa, and the U.K.,” Alfons Adetuyi, founder of Inner City Films, tells Playback Daily. “We are trying to bridge the gap between these three markets.”

Acts of Man follows two detectives assigned to investigate a brutal ritualistic killing in a small town in a mountain region of South Africa. The series was inspired by real life crimes involving “the satanic panic” that happened during apartheid.

The South African creatives behind Acts of Man are Sean Drummond, who wrote and produced Five Fingers for Marseilles, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2017, and Sheetal Magan, director of the short film Paraya.

Both will act as writers and producers through their companies: Drummond’s Be Phat Motel Film Company and Magan’s Atman Media.

“Characters will go through crises of faith, a crisis of self… trying to understand this complicated world, which is why I think our Canadian partners were drawn to it,” says Drummond, adding that Canada and South Africa are countries that “struggle with the legacy of colonization,” which the series will also address.

The team is currently looking to staff a writer’s room. Drummond says that while “the coproduction aims to bring skills from both [Canada and South Africa],” they are also looking at potentially hiring writers from other regions. He says the series will likely be filmed in South Africa but is aimed at a global audience.

“Murder mystery has a certain currency internationally,” adds Adetuyi. “Everybody seems to be fully drawn to the genre.”

Development for Acts of Man has been financially supported through the Canada Media Fund and South African National Film and Video Foundation’s Canada-South Africa Co-development Incentive for Television Projects. Canadian producer Todd Brown (The Raid) and director Casey Walker (The Hardy Boys) are attached to the project alongside Naysun Alae-Carew of the Glasgow-based prodco Blazing Griffin.

Adetuyi says his team’s next move will be connecting with international creatives during TIFF, which runs from Sept. 5 to 15.

Written by Luis Felipe Mussalem

Pictured (L-R): Alfons Adetuyi, Amos Adetuyi, Sheetal Magan, Joel Phiri and Sean Drummond