Waterfront is a South African, Afrikaans-language television drama series created by Marida Swanepoel which revolves around three sisters whose paths reconnect after a family tragedy brings all three back to their place of youth and childhood - the Waterfront in Cape Town.
Boat-building patriarch Ben Myburgh (Dawid Minnaar) is dead. This brings his three daughters - Julia (Milan Murray), Anna (Rolanda Marais) and Kate (Trix Vivier) - back to the family business at the Cape Town harbour. But only one of them will inherit - and not what she expected - in this dark story of secrets, sibling rivalry and gentrification.
The series is a reminder that the beauty of the location came at a price: the gentrification that followed the development of the shopping centre in the 80s meant that not all of the Waterfront's neighbours could afford to stay on what had become prime property. Even the likes of the Myburghs were put under immense pressure to move.
Waterfront was originally envisaged as a soap opera – it was shortlisted with The Wild when M-Net was looking for a soap, and again with Suidooster when kykNET wanted one.
But when director Jaco Bouwer got involved, his references were rather family dramas like Bloodline and Nordic noir like The Killing. Together with screenwriter Leon Kruger, Bouwer rebooted the show to focus on the complicated human relationships at the heart of the story, shifting the primary locations from the brightly lit shopping mall to the shadowy nooks and crannies of the harbour.
Waterfront stars Milan Murray, Trix Vivier, Stian Bam and Rolanda Marais. The Myburgh sisters' mother is played by Joanie Combrink, whilst Stian Bam and Edwin van der Walt play the husband and son of the middle sister, who has to return home from London with more than just her baggage.
Albert Pretorius, Erica Wessels, Charlton Lee George, Paul du Toit, Stian Bam and Neels van Jaarsveld co-star alongside Edwin van der Walt, Hannes van Wyk, Joanie Combrink, Euodia Samson, Marvin Lee Beukes and Tarryn Wyngaard.
The series was created by Marida Swanepoel and is produced by Marche Media with executive producers Herman Binge, Jaco Smit, Roelof Storm, Louis Botha, Albert Geldenhuys and Sonja Roux. The suprvising producer for kykNET is Marguerite Albrecht. Leon Kruger wrote the screenplay and the series is directed by Jaco Bouwer. Music is by Pierre-Henri Wicomb.