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Like with the music industry, we have to support our local story tellers and content creators as well. I find myself watching more and more locally produced movies and TV shows lately and to be honest, they’ve made it easier on the eye. I think the days of “ag let’s maar give it a chance” has made way for “I can’t wait for the next episode!” because the local okes have seriously put on their big girl panties and got to work. Tech has also improved a lot and became more readily available, I reckon. The quality of South African shows are on par with their overseas counterparts and we’re finally telling our own stories on our own streaming platforms.

Here are some suggestions on lekker local stuff to stream this weekend.

Hotel
I actually visited this film set and met the crew and cast on their very last shooting day and scene of season three. So far there are four seasons available and it was renewed for a fifth season. The guys were supposed to start filming the latest season during the end of February (hey, that’s like, this week!) but fokken COVID-19 put an end to that. It sounds like production will luckily pick up later this year in August. Hotel is a mocumentary set in a hotel in a small town hotel called Fransenburg. Schalk Bezuidenhout and Boer Jaap are a fucking laugh a minute! Actually, all of the characters are hilarious!

Trackers
Deon Meyer’s best selling and electrifying action crime thriller featuring various stories of organized crime, diamond smuggling, Black Rhinos, the CIA and terrorism in Cape Town. Probably the most ambitious and big budget local series produced to date.

Die Byl
Season 2 is now also available and the brilliant detective Piet van der Bijl and his team are back for another nail-biting season of solving murder cases. However in this season, the investigators become the targets. This series is loosely based on true cases and the life of to cop and super sleuth, Piet Byleveld, who sadly passed away from lung cancer in 2017 at the age of 67.

Tali’s Wedding Diary and Tali’s Baby Diary
From the poeples what bringed you SuzelleDIY comes a hilarious new mockumentary starring Julia Anastasopoulos as Tali, a Joburg princess what moves to Cape Town – and she are getting married! And now (as in this fokken week!) Tali Babes can like to be back wiff a pregnant tummy. She is working on her new look as a “momfluencer”, while husband and tjommie Darren and Rael negotiate the choppy waters of the Cape Town property game. As always, there is lots of kak what fucks out. You can now enjoy this back to back if you ever missed the first season because it are funny as fuck!

4 Mure
You need a bit of Afrikaans drama to balance out the comedy, so watch this series of five episodes set in the same hotel room – five different stories, five different genres and Marcelina, the charming yet incompetent hotel cleaner.

Raised by Wolves
OK, I know this Ridley Scott sci-fi series can’t really be called a local series, but it was shot in its entirety in the Western Cape, it is the biggest production ever shot on South African soil and in fact, they did make use of a lot of local actors and created a lot of jobs in the local film industry. Plus our locals probably picked up invaluable skills and training on the job. Just watch it and thank me later.

DAM
You better believe all the hype surrounding this local thriller series which was released earlier this week, because it really is THAT fucking good! The story that gets told and the way that it has been done, has never been done before, or if it has, I’ve never come across it. Set in an Eastern Cape farming community, the story follows Yola who returns home from Chile for her father’s funeral, only to be met by the ghosts of her past. Stellar local cast, Just blerrie marvelous! My pick for best South African series I’ve seen to date!

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Need more streaming goodness? Check out our top 10 list of movies and TV series picks from the Plumlist. It is my to-go-to website when I’m stuck for streaming ideas from Netflix, Showmax and Amazon Prime:

#10. Showmax Original Tali’s Baby Diary is “a joy to behold” In the laugh-a-minute mockumentary, an unexpected pregnancy forces Tali (Julia Anastasopoulos, aka SuzelleDIY, who we first met in Tali’s Wedding Diary in 2017) into a desperate pivot from Insta-influencer to wholesome momfluencer. .	On Showmax (read more)
# 9. Ten Martin Scorsese series and movies to stream in South Africa To say Martin Scorsese is a living legend is not an overstatement. As a director, since the 1970s he has brought some of the best movies to the screen, many now considered classics – Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Colour Of Money, Casino and many more. As a producer he has multiple credits, and his documentaries are as entertaining as any of his scripted films. Shine A Light, about the Rolling Stones’ Beacon Theatre performance during the band’s Bigger Bang tour in 2006, remains one of the best doccies I’ve seen.	On Netflix & Showmax (read more)
#8 DAM is “South Africa’s answer to HBO’s The Outsider” Early reviews are glowing, with YFM’s resident critic Yazz the Student comparing DAM to HBO’s The Outsider and saying the “eerie” and “unsettling” show feels “different to the South African television landscape.”	On Showmax (read more)
#7 Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a “terrifying watch” Serial killers fascinate us. Fact. Type those words into the search field, on Netflix in particular, and you’ll get dozens of results, from documentaries to scripted series and movies. The topic shows no sign of abating (simple supply and demand), and the latest addition to the platform is Night Stalker: The Hunt For A Serial Killer, which tells the story of Richard Ramirez, who terrorised Los Angeles in the summer of 1985.	On Netflix (read more)
#6 Meet the cast of Showmax Original Tali’s Baby Diary Julia first came into the public eye as the hilarious doyenne of do-it-yourself, SuzelleDIY. After racking up millions of YouTube views, Julia, who’s also a well-known illustrator and artist, was ready to debut her new creation: Tali, “a Joburg girl who’s recently moved to Cape Town”.	On Showmax (read more)
#5 Meet the all-star cast of DAM, the Showmax Original thriller series DAM has been called “South Africa’s answer to The Outsider and Sharp Objects“. It was shot on location in the Eastern Cape, and comes from the pen of four-time SAFTA winner Alex Yazbek. As you’ll see, the ensemble cast is full of exceptional local talent. Here’s a guide to the characters in DAM, and the stars who bring them to life.	On Showmax (read more)
4# Seven of the best Amazon Original movies to stream on Prime Video HBO’s dystopian space opera has made waves with its bold vision and sweeping visuals of desolate alien landscapes, all filmed in Cape Town. But it’s not only the gorgeous cinematography, typical of anything Ridley Scott, that’s had fans gripped, eagerly following each episode.	On Amazon Prime (read more)
#3 Interview: Pallance Dladla on his role as Themba in DAM In DAM, the Showmax Original thriller series (binge-watch all eight episodes here), Lea Vivier stars as Yola Fischer, a young woman who returns to the Eastern Cape farming town of her childhood to bury her father. She finds out that she’s inherited the house where she and her sister grew up, but being at home soon starts to wear her down – especially when spirits in the house seem to be tormenting her. Or is it all in her head?	On Showmax (read more)
#2 Where to stream Shonda Rhimes series in South Africa Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19 and more award-winning drama series are currently streaming on Netflix and on DStv in South Africa. Here’s where to find the latest seasons.m.	On DStv Now & Netflix (read more)
#1 Interview: Lea Vivier on playing the troubled but brave heroine in DAM Silwerskerm Best Actress winner Lea Vivier (The Day We Didn’t Meet) leads an all-star cast in the new Showmax Original DAM, a small-town psychological thriller from four-time SAFTA winner Alex Yazbek that is now streaming.	On Showmax (read more)

[feature_headline type=”left, center, right” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h3″ icon=”lightbulb-o”] Our randomized trailer pick of the week [/feature_headline]

Each week we take a number from 1 to 10 from our list of suggestions and put it through a randomizer to choose a trailer to show you. This week it landed on our number 4 spot, “Seven of the best Amazon Original movies to stream on Prime Video” so we cheated and spun the wheel again and it landed on our number 7 spot” Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a “terrifying watch”. So we kept on spinning until it landed on DAM because you should really fucking watch this series:
When a young woman returns to her small-town home, she’s confronted by an unspeakable past. But is the cause of her terror real, or is she losing her mind? DAM.  Available since 22 Feb, only on Showmax: