South African Film & Television
How govt bungling iced a globally popular SA TV mystery drama
By William Brederode · 20 February 2026 · News24
Season three of Recipes for Love and Murder, a Karoo mystery drama sold in over 100 countries, is on ice. The team behind the show says it has been let down twice after applying for South Africa's film and television production incentive — and the series' financiers won't shoot another season until the matter is resolved.
Tens of millions of rands should be flowing into the making of a television series in Prince Albert right now, funding crews, accommodation, catering and local suppliers. Instead, South Africa's broken film incentive has left the third season of the globally distributed Karoo series in limbo.
Recipes for Love and Murder is a hit South African mystery drama, based on novels by author Sally Andrew. Irish actor Maria Doyle Kennedy, who has appeared in shows such as Downton Abbey and Outlander, played the lead role of Tannie Maria, a food columnist who gets drawn into murder investigations.
The series was primarily shot in Prince Albert. Some scenes were shot in other parts of the Karoo, Cape Town, and Edinburgh, Scotland. The series was distributed to more than 100 countries, received positive reviews from critics, and was quickly renewed for a second season.
Despite the show's success, plans for a third season are on ice. Behind the scenes, the series' creators and funders say they have been burnt twice by the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (dtic) when applying for the film and television production incentive. They are unwilling to film in South Africa until the issues with the incentive are resolved, and are considering shooting in Ireland or Scotland instead.
Thierry Cassuto, the producer and co-creator of the show, spoke to News24 about the series. Cassuto is the founder and executive chairman of Both Worlds Group, a South African production company. After it obtained the rights to turn Recipes for Love and Murder into a series, it secured several high-profile partners.
He said that M-Net and Acorn — an American partner that is part of AMC Networks — came on board because they liked the scripts. Screen Scotland and Global Screen, a German company, also put money behind the project.
In early 2021, the producers applied to the dtic for the film and television production incentive. The incentive, set up in 2004, offers qualifying local and international productions and post-productions a rebate of between 25% and 35% on their spend in South Africa, up to a maximum of R25 million. The limit used to be R50 million.
The incentive is structured so that pre-approved productions must take on the project's risk and claim the rebate afterwards, provided they comply with certain criteria, including transformation requirements. Many countries around the world offer similar incentives to attract film crews.
Recipes for Love and Murder, which would spend money in the Karoo and result in a South African story being told on the international stage, is exactly the sort of project that has benefited from the incentive in the past. On 30 March 2021, the dtic's adjudication panel granted the project pre-approval for its first season.
To comply with dtic requirements, the production had to start shooting before 14 September 2021. Filming was set to start in late August 2021.
However, a confluence of factors delayed production, including uncertainty created by the riots in KwaZulu-Natal in July, disruptions related to the Covid-19 pandemic and international travel restrictions, which grounded the overseas partners.
The producers requested an extension from the dtic, which was entirely within the guidelines. Radio silence followed.
"After a month, they had no answer, so we chased. After two months, they had no answer, so we chased by phone and by email. Still nothing."
As they had already completed six months of pre-production, the producers decided they needed to go ahead and shoot. They had to ask the funders — M-Net, Global Screen and AMC — to cover the shortfall or the risk. They started shooting on 20 September 2021, six days after the initial dtic deadline.
Cassuto said it took until 8 October — 18 days after filming had started — for the department to request supporting documentation. But by then it was too late. They were no longer eligible for the incentive.
Luckily, the show went on to become a hit. Season one was sold to more than 100 countries, and the show was renewed for a second season.
The producers submitted their incentive application for season two a few months before it was set to start shooting in April 2024. Cassuto said the application exceeded the incentive's R25-million limit. By News24's calculation, this means the plan was to spend at least R100 million on the shoot in South Africa.
Officials at the dtic had informally confirmed the application was complete and had told the producers that it would go to adjudication in February 2024, Cassuto said. But the adjudication committee did not meet in February — and has not met since.
The financiers again carried all the risk for the project, and shooting started in April 2024. The application has still not been before an adjudication committee.
While season two of the show was also a success, the financiers of Recipes for Love and Murder do not intend to commission a third season until the issues with the incentive are resolved.
Cassuto said there is still appetite among the partners for a third season — but only if the issues are addressed and the R25 million they had applied for in season two is paid out as a gesture of goodwill.
"It means our international partners absorbed a financial risk they shouldn't have had to, and have now decided they won't do so again. That's why season three is on hold."
He said that they are now actively exploring shooting the third season of the series in Ireland or Scotland, where government support is predictable and commitments are honoured. That is not a threat — it is simply where things stand.
The loss to South Africa, in Cassuto's view, extends beyond the money that is not being invested in the country.
"The people of Prince Albert, where we shot, also benefited from the ripple effect of destination tourism. They came to see the house that Maria lived in, the pink butchery in the centre of town — all of the landmarks that we have in the show."
News24 spoke to Albert Olivier, the owner of the Karoo Slaghuis Prince Albert, to ask if being included in the series had benefited him. "I would say that it did make a difference in business. Lots of people that see the building come and have a look," said Olivier. He added that it would be nice to see a season three come out, noting the positive impact the series has had on a small town like Prince Albert.
The challenges faced by Recipes for Love and Murder have been commonplace under the dtic's film incentive since 2020. South Africa used to spend more than R520 million a year on the incentive, but after years of being a world-leader, the dtic's initiative has fallen apart. At a session in Parliament on Tuesday, MPs called for an investigation into possible maladministration of the fund.
Things started to go very wrong in 2020, when about 30 projects that had been pre-approved for the incentive were told they hadn't met new criteria unilaterally imposed without proper consultation with the industry. After a protracted fight, the dtic did end up honouring its payouts.
At around the same time, the department had also pre-approved more projects than it had approved budget for, and had its budget cut by the government. The adjudication committee has not approved new incentive projects since early 2024. This effectively means the incentive has been suspended.
Many productions that may otherwise have come to South Africa over the past few years have chosen not to. The Independent Producers Organisation presented to Parliament a list of projects lost due to delays with the dtic film incentive approval:
Deputy Minister Zuko Godlimpi told Parliament his department was in discussion with the Treasury over incentive reforms, and that it was seeking urgent interim funding to address current claims and applications. He said he favoured an approach that did not impose a one-size-fits-all incentive model, but that a new model had not yet been decided on.
At the time of publication, News24 had not received a response to questions put to the dtic.