EXCLUSIVE: Julie Gayet will star in Boy Under Water, a South African crime drama series from Nagvlug Films and Federation MEAC.
The three-time César nominee and President of the doc prize jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival will play an expat single mother who runs a floating bar with her teenage son in a luxury resort town in South Africa‘s North West province. When the body of a 16-year-old Black boy is found bound and battered on the manicured shores of the local golf estate, their search for a fresh start is upended.
Showmax parent MultiChoice has already snapped up African rights for Boy Under Water, which was selected for the 2023 Content London Drama Series Pitch. No international distributor is attached at this stage.
Co-creators on the series are Nagvlug’s Chanél Muller and Nico Scheepers, who just won the 2025 Deleen Bekker Prize from the South African Academy for Science and Arts for their screenwriting on DSTV series Nêrens Noord-Kaap Deel II. Muller also produces alongside Nagvlug’s Zandré Coetzer and Federation MEAC’s Joachim Landau.
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South Africa-based Nagvlug previously produced Scheepers’ crime drama Donkerbos, the only African series selected for Berlinale Series Market Selects in 2023, while Federation MEAC is known for the likes of Deadline Global Breakout pick Spinners, the first African series at Canneseries.
Federation Studios and Empreinte Digitale launched Federation MEAC, a production subsidiary devoted to the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean, in 2022. Last year, we revealed Federation MEAC is turning South African scribe Deon Meyer’s Last Of Us-like thriller Fever into a TV series.
Gayet is known for 8 Fois Debout, which landed her a Best Actress win at the Tokyo International Film Festival, and Sélect Hôtel. Recently, she has starred in the likes of France Télévisions’ Olympe, une Femme dans la Révolution and comedy-drama feature Comme une Actrice. She also starred in an episode of Call My Agent. She will head the jury selecting the winner of the Cannes doc prize, L’Œil d’or.
“Boy Under Water is one of the strongest, most thrilling series I have read, which resonates as a mother during these times,” said Gayet.
Muller and Coetzer will attend the Producers Network at the Marché du Film during Cannes, repping Nagvlug Films’ slate. This includes two feature films in post-production and another two in development.