Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has confirmed that she’s signed a multi-year deal with Apple TV+ to create a variety of dramas, comedies, documentaries, and animated series under her new production venture, Extracurricular. The news was first broken in Variety.
The Pakistani-born woman won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 when she was 17 and has continued to be an advocate for marginalized women the world over.
The first season will include three features about Asian women: an adaptation of Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorientation, a scripted series based on Asha Lemmie’s Fifty Words for Rain, and a documentary about elderly fisherwomen in South Korea. Chou wrote Disorientation as a satire about her graduate-school experiences; it’s being produced by Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries. The Korean film, by Peabody nominee Sue Kim, is also in production. Lemmie’s book was about a mixed-race woman in post-WWII Japan.
Describing her plans, Yousafazi said. “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 that we challenge some of the stereotypes we hold in our societies. And I also hope that the content is entertaining, and that people fall in love with the characters.”
Yousafzi has named Erika Kennair as president of production at Extracurricular. Kennair, who produced The Flight Attendant, was a former executive at Berlanti Productions. Vogue magazine described her role in an article this week, which said in part, “While some in the industry might have assumed that Extracurricular would focus exclusively on weighty, family-friendly and issue-driven projects, given Yousafzai’s background in activism, Kennair insists this will not be the case. Instead, she promises films and TV shows that reflect Yousafzai’s wide range of interests, from ‘fun [stories] that bring people together’ to darker fare. Malala has probably the darkest sense of humor I’ve ever encountered,’ she says.
Casting for the projects has not yet been announced.