A24, Malala Partner on Feature Doc for Apple About Korea’s Haenyeo Community of Elderly Fisherwomen (EXCLUSIVE)
Malala Yousafzai — activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner and film and TV producer — is in production on her first project for Apple, Variety can reveal.
Her production company Extracurricular has partnered with indie studio A24 for a still-untitled feature documentary on the legendary “haenyeo” society of fisherwomen, who live on South Korea’s Jeju Island.
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The Apple Original Films title is directed by Peabody Award nominee Sue Kim (“The Speed Cubers”), and is the first project to go into production from Extracurricular’s Apple TV+ partnership, which was struck in March 2021.
The film tells the story of the “haenyeo,” dubbed “Korea’s mermaids” — a community of elderly free divers whose work catching seafood off the coast of Jeju Island has supported their community for generations.
Matriarchs, breadwinners and rowdy grandmas, the haenyeo’s numbers have dwindled in the past few decades. However, their youngest descendants are now helping to revive the revered and often dangerous lifestyle of their ancestors, while fighting to protect the ocean from the looming environmental threat.
As revealed by Variety, Yousafzai has a number of other projects in the works for Apple, including a feature film adaptation of the book “Disorientation,” directed by “Don’t Look Up” helmer Adam McKay.
Elsewhere, A24, is also collaborating with Apple on the upcoming Steve Martin documentary.
Yousafzai and Erika Kennair, Extracurricular’s president of productions, will produce the documentary alongside A24.
The film joins Apple’s growing slate of documentaries, which includes Toronto-premiering Sidney Poitier documentary “Sidney,” as well as a four-part docuseries on Earvin “Magic” Johnson, “They Call Me Magic”; the Emmy Award-nominated documentary “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”; and the Critics’ Choice Documentary Award-nominated film “The Velvet Underground.”
The company recently announced a film about beloved actor and advocate Michael J. Fox.
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