
- Showmax has just dropped the trailer for ‘Blood Psalms’, an epic, action-packed African fantasy series, set in ancient Africa.
• Blood Psalms will premiere on Showmax on Wednesday, 28 September 2022
• Blood Psalms will have its world premiere in Cape Town on Wednesday, 24 August 2022 as the opening night screening at MIP Africa, part of FAME Week Africa
• All-star cast includes Bokang Phelane, Mothusi Magano, Zolisa Xaluva and another seven SAFTA winners
Showmax has just dropped the trailer for Blood Psalms, an epic, action-packed African fantasy series. Blood Psalms is a co-production of Showmax and CANAL+.
The series will premiere on Showmax on 28 September 2022, with new episodes every Wednesday for 11 weeks. Blood Psalms will also have its world premiere in Cape Town on Wednesday, 24 August 2022 as the opening night screening at MIP Africa, part of FAME Week Africa.
Storyline -In Ancient Africa, one thousand 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 (Keeping Score, Isidingo) has the role of a lifetime as Princess Zazi, a fiercely determined teenage princess who must navigate primordial curses, long-standing ancestral vendettas, and her inexplicable role as the damning prophecy’s chief harbinger.
Mothusi Magano, winner of four SAFTAs and an African Movie Academy Award, plays her father, mad king Letsha, while SAFTA winner and 2022 DSTV Mzansi Viewers’ Choice nominee Zolisa Xaluva (Gomora, Knuckle City) plays General Toka, the head of her father’s Akachi army.






Blood Psalms is the biggest and most ambitious series we’ve ever made, completely unlike any other African series you’ve ever seen, We couldn’t be more excited.”
Nomsa Philiso, Executive head, Programming at MultiChoice.
Cast Member Phelane referred to the series as an “answer to who we are”. She said –
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.”
“Blood Psalms is a heck of a ride and it’s never been done before,” says cast member Magano.

“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.”
The trailer gives us our first glimpses of the star-studded cast, which includes SAFTA winners Bongile Mantsai (Knuckle City), Hamilton Dlamini (Five Fingers For Marseilles), Hlubi Mboya (Isidingo), S’dumo Mtshali (iNumber Number, Is’thunzi), Siv Ngesi (DAM), Thishiwe Ziqubu (The Imposter), Warren Masemola (The Republic) and others.
Show creators Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T. Qubeka from Yellowbone Entertainment were responsible for South Africa’s 2020 Oscar entry, Knuckle City. The boxing drama was the most awarded film at the 2020 SAFTAs, where it took home six awards, including Best Director for Qubeka and Best Editor for Swart, and the most nominated film at the 2020 AMAAs, where it won two awards.
“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“, Says Swart.
Blood Psalms is filmed in Eastern Cape, Gauteng and North West provinces (South Africa).
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