Following her partnership with Apple Inc. last year to produce a number of dramas, Pakistan’s youngest Nobel prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai, is now venturing into film production, and has signed a deal for three projects.
1. Untitled Documentary
The 24-year-old’s production company, Extracurricular, has partnered with an independent studio called A24 for a yet untitled documentary on the historic haenyeo society of fisherwomen on Jeju Island in South Korea.
The documentary is directed by Sue Kim and will premiere on Apple TV+.
Yousafzai also recently unveiled her first slate of film and TV projects for Apple TV+ via Extracurricular.
2. Feature
The slate also includes a feature that is adapted from Elaine Hsieh Chou’s book Disorientation, which is about a college student’s eye-opening dissertation on a young poet and was published earlier this year.
The project will be produced by Don’t Look Up helmer Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries, and will be overseen by Stephanie Mercado and Todd Schulman.
3. Series
Extracurricular is also working on a series based on Asha Lemmie’s New York Times best-selling novel, Fifty Words for Rain.
Its story revolves around a woman’s search for acceptance after World War II in Japan.
Extracurricular’s Head of Production, Erika Kennair, revealed that new actors would play prominent roles in the projects.
Variety quoted Yousafzai as saying,
What I hope to bring to the table are the voices of women of color, and debut writers and Muslim directors and writers. I hope we can have a wide range of perspectives and we challenge some of the stereotypes we hold in our societies.
She added, “I also hope that the content is entertaining and that people fall in love with the characters and have the best time together”.
