Catch Me a Killer | |
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Genre | True crime |
Written by |
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Directed by |
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Starring |
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Country of origin | South Africa |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 11 |
Production | |
Executive producer | Bob Conte & others |
Producers |
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Production location | South Africa |
Cinematography | Dino Benedetti, Fahema Hendricks |
Editor | Claire Pringle |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | Showmax |
Release | February 2024 |
Catch Me a Killer is an 11-part true crime television series set in South Africa, based on cases worked on by forensic psychologist and police investigator Micki Pistorius in the 1990s. It stars British actress Charlotte Hope as Pistorius.
The series is based on the autobiography of the same name by South African forensic psychologist and police investigator Micki Pistorius, who was instrumental in securing convictions for many serial killers in the late 1990s. [1]
South African playwright and screenwriter Amy Jephta was lead writer on the series, [2] with other writers being Sarah Hooper, Jessica Ruston, and Oliver Frampton. [2] It is directed by Rene van Rooyen, Tracey Larcombe, and Brett Michael-Innes. [3] [4] Pistorius was a consultant on the series, and also provided emotional support to Hope during filming. [5]
The series was co-produced by the German production company Night Train Media, [2] along with CMak (UK) and M-Net (SA). [4]
Production design was by Warren Gray. [6] [7]
Catch Me a Killer was screened in the International Panorama section of the 2024 edition of Series Mania in Lille, France, having its French premiere on 19 February 2024. [8] It was the first South African series to feature in Series Mania. [9]
The series was released by South African streaming service Showmax in February 2024, [10] and in the UK on Alibi on 5 March 2024. [1] It became available at the same time on free streaming service SBS on Demand in Australia. [5] The series is available in the United States and Canada on BritBox.[ citation needed ]
The French film festival Series Mania described Catch Me a Killer as "A female Mindhunter in the guise of a wonderfully-produced true-crime series". [11]
The series won "Best Production Design – TV – Light Entertainment & Band 1 Programmes" in the British Film Designers Guild Awards, with production designer Warren Gray, supervising art director Sara Hartinger, and set decorators Anneke Botha and Annicia Bloom named as recipients. [6] [7]
Robert Kenneth Ressler was an American FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term Serienmörder coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.
Micki is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
Pistorius or Pistor are Latinized surnames, corresponding to the Dutch Bakker or the German Becker and German Müller.
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Micki Pistorius is a South African forensic or investigative psychologist and author. She was the first woman in her profession and the first profiler in South Africa, working on many high-profile cases involving serial killers for the South African Police Service in the 1990s.
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Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode is a South African rapist and serial killer who was convicted in 1995 on eight counts of murder, five counts of rape, five counts of attempted murder, and two counts of indecent assault.
Charlotte Hope is an English actress. She first achieved recognition for her recurring role as Myranda in the third through fifth seasons of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2013–2016). Hope gained further prominence in the lead role of Catherine of Aragon on the Starz historical drama series The Spanish Princess (2019–2020). In 2020, she appeared as a series regular on the second season of the ITV thriller Bancroft and the Netflix biographical drama The English Game. Hope headlined the Showmax true crime series Catch Me a Killer as forensic psychologist Micki Pistorius in 2024.
Showmax is an online subscription video on demand (SVOD) service that launched in South Africa on 19 August 2015. Its majority owner is MultiChoice, which owns 70% of the Showmax group, while American conglomerate NBCUniversal owns 30% in all territories except Nigeria, where NBCUniversal holds an indirect 23.7% stake in the local subsidiary. In 2023, Showmax announced a partnership with Comcast's NBCUniversal and Sky. The new Showmax launched in February 2024, with a brand-new app and streaming platform, as well as an unprecedented content slate.
Mindhunter is an American psychological crime thriller television series created by Joe Penhall, based on the 1995 true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The series debuted in 2017 and ran for two seasons. Executive producers included Penhall, Charlize Theron, and David Fincher, the latter of whom served as the series' most frequent director and de facto showrunner, overseeing many of the scriptwriting and production processes. The series stars Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv, and follows the founding of the Behavioral Science Unit in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the late 1970s and the beginning of criminal profiling.
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Xolani Thandikaya Qubeka, professionally known as Jahmil X.T Qubeka, is a South African film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Stéphane Bourgoin, also known as Etienne Jallieu, is a French author specializing in true crime.
Lea Vivier is a South African actress, best known for her leading role in the Showmax original series Dam (2021) and her appearances in the films The Day We Didn't Meet (2021) and Wonderlus (2017).
Shamilla Miller is a South African actress, television presenter and model. She is best known for her roles in Amaza, Forced Love, Tali's Baby Diary, Troy: Fall of a City, and The Girl from St. Agnes.
Crime and Justice is a 2021 Kenyan Showmax Original mystery, crime, and drama series produced by Showmax and Canal+, starring Alfred Munyua, Sarah Hassan, Maqbul Mohammed, Paul Ogola, and Brian Ogola.
The Cape Town Prostitute Killer, also known as TheCape Town Strangler, is an unidentified South African serial killer who fatally strangled 16 prostitutes and three domestic workers in Cape Town between 1992 and 1996. His modus operandi consisted of picking up his victims on rainy nights, fatally strangling them in his car, and dumping their bodies in preselected locations. Although none of the victims were raped, the perpetrator tried to stage them to make it look as if they were.
Lazarus Tshidiso Mazingane, also known as The Nasrec serial killer, is a South African serial killer who murdered at least 16.