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South Africa’s Totem Zea and Dutch production company PRPL are teaming on “Third Wheel,” one of the big buzz titles this week at Fantasia’s Frontières Co-Production Market, combining entertainment in its propulsive
psychological thriller drive plus a swingeing comment on post-colonial power dynamics in Africa.
To be directed by Zoe Ramushu, whose short “It Takes a Circus” was nominated for the 48th Student Academy Awards, the movie project is produced by her partner Reabetswe Moeti-Vogt at their South African label Totem Zea, behind Black female-fronted comedy “Real Estate Sisters.”
Also producing is Netherlands-based PRPL, headed by CEO Ellen Havenith, whose “When It Melts” won best performance at Sundance while its “Tiger Stripes” won the Grand Prix at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, both in 2023.
“Third Wheel” will be presented at the Frontières Co-Production Market, which kicks off in Montreal Wednesday with a day-long pitching session of projects.
Also written by Ramushu, “Third Wheel” turns on Thina, 26, a Black surgeon who was adopted by the white family for whom her biological mother still works.
At her white adoptive family’s stunning Drakensberg mountain estate, Thina prepares for her wedding with a woke Black fiancé and Emma, her white adoptive sister and best friend. But at a boozy weekend devotion twists into possession and Thina, the synopsis says, “must face the chilling truth: the monster is the one who claims to love you most.”
“‘Third Wheel’ is an allegory for post-colonial Africa,” Ramushu has said. “Independent countries are dating, getting to know, maybe committing to their governments. The colonizers? Playing third wheel. Told through South Africa’s trend of white families informally adopting Black children — offering ‘what they can’ from the goodness of their white hearts or white guilt. This is one of their stories.”
“We can’t wait to put the soaking wet kudu on the big screen. It quietly stalks the film in a way that’s beautiful, unsettling and uniquely African,” Ramushu told Variety.
“Beyond the mystery, ‘Third Wheel’ explores marriage from an unusual angle,” she added. “Weddings force every version of yourself into the same room — your family self, your work self, your childhood self, your partner self. It’s the day you’re supposed to publicly declare who you are and who you belong to… and that can become a nightmare. Literally.”
Set to shoot in 2027, the project has so far received development and production funding from the Thuthuka Co-Development Fund, the joint support program between South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and the Netherlands Film Fund (NFF).
