Rogan Productions Opens South Africa Office & Tweaks Management Set Up

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off producing Channel 4’s Free Nelson Mandela, Rogan Productions has opened an office in South Africa.

The new unit, Rogan South Africa, will be a production base in Johannesburg with close links to Cape Town. This marks the first permanent international expansion for the 13-year-old London-based company.

At the same time, Rogan is tweaking its management set-up with founders James and Soleta Rogan taking on co-CEO titles, as well as leading Rogan SA as they search for a local senior producer. The pair has jointly led Rogan since launch, but to this point Soleta Rogan has been Managing Director and James Rogan the Creative Director. Mark Hedgecoe is Head of Rogan Scotland in Glasgow, but is moving to STV in October, with a replacement being sought.

Soleta and James Rogan have close ties with South Africa and their recent three-part doc series Free Nelson Mandela was a well-reviewed look at the life of the anti-apartheid campaigner and political prisoner who became the country’s first Black president in 1992. BBC Studios is shopping it internationally.

Rogan also produced Original Sin: My Son the Killer for now-defunct South African streamer Showmax. The feature doc, co-produced with fellow UK firm Electric Shadow Company in association with Brazil’s Red Earth and South Africa’s Combined Artists, follows Thea Pretorius, mother of Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren, who murdered his girlfriend Andrea Venter in front of her neighbours, security guards and CCTV cameras in 2011 and then escaped two years later just before his trial.

“South Africa has always inspired and captivated us with its deep creativity and extraordinary stories so setting up a base here has been a long-held ambition for us,” said James Rogan. “Whether in drama or documentary, there are world class filmmakers in South Africa, that we are looking forward to working with, and new platforms that are showcasing the brilliance and the potential of African stories. Rogan SA connects us to a storytelling tradition that is hugely powerful and it is an exciting next step on our creative and commercial journey.”

Rogan’s productions include Boom Box: Beats and Betrayal for HBO Max, Bowie: The Final Act for Film4/Channel 4, and BAFTA winners Grenfell: Uncovered for Netflix and Uprising for the BBC.

“With our broader footprint, Rogan is afforded the scope to deliver more stories in more formats, to more audiences,” said Soleta Rogan. “This has been an aim we have been actively working towards for the past couple of years, with the idea first being ruminated long before that. Opening in a territory that holds a personal connection is a real moment of celebration for us, and we look forward to delivering shows from our widened slate in the future.”