Shaping the world into a greater place has been an lively mission for Malala Yousafzai. As an activist for ladies and human rights globally acknowledged since age 12, the Nobel Peace Prize winner — the youngest in historical past to obtain the award — is not any stranger to cameras in her personal life. After her acclaimed 2015 documentary He Named Me Malala, impressed by her bestselling memoir I Am Malala, she produced the Oscar-nominated brief doc Stranger on the Gate. On the 2024 Toronto Movie Pageant, Yousafzai premiered the Apple doc The Final of the Sea Ladies, from her manufacturing firm Extracurricular, which premieres on Apple TV+ on Oct. 11. The movie examines the world of South Korea’s all feminine haenyeo divers, whose centuries-long custom of harvesting sea life within the waters off Jeju Island is endangered.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg spoke with the 27-year-old Yousafzai as a part of the annual TIFF Trade Convention’ Visionaries dialog sequence. Specializing in what Jane Kim, producer of business programming at TIFF, described because the “transformative power of storytelling to shape the world for better,” Feinberg delved into how storytelling has formed Yousafzai and the way she is utilizing storytelling as a producer to proceed the work she’s performed since she her pre-teen years.
With Extracurricular, the identify of which riffs off of Yousafzai’s mission to educate, the activist says she took a really sensible strategy to coming into the business. “When I started working on this production company, I was looking at different projects that were happening and how I could begin by supporting them as an executive producer,” she recalled. “Joyland [the 2015 drama that was briefly banned in Pakistan for its story about a man who falls in love with a transgender erotic dancer] stood out because it was written and directed by this amazing Pakistani director [Saim Sadiq], and it was telling a very important story in a very powerful way. It was, I think, the first Pakistani film to be shortlisted for the Oscars as well. I’m so honored to be part of it, and it won the Independent Spirit Award as well.”
Serving as government producer of Stranger on the Gate, the brief documentary about an ex-Marine’s focused bombing of a Muslim group heart in Indiana that takes a strong human flip, landed her an invitation to final yr’s Oscars. “It was amazing,” she stated of the expertise, the place she rubbed elbows with varied stars. Having an Oscar-nominated movie was additionally enlightening.
“We still need more representation,” she realized. “We need more women, more people of color, to get the opportunity to tell their stories and more Muslim people as well to tell their stories. I think storytelling can really help us change perspectives in a way that a lot of other things can’t. I think it takes time. But it’s the human-to-human connection that can help us see the world in a more human way.”
With Apple, Yousafzai stated she’s discovered an amazing companion: “I want to be in a place where I can continue to work with incredible women directors, writers and storytellers, and I want to work with people who bring a different perspective that we don’t often see on the screen. So we partnered with Apple because Apple has the same values. We talk about the importance of the people who we are connecting with through these documentaries or TV shows. We talk about the message that we are conveying, and we also talk about the entertainment and the fun side of it, that it can help people have moments of joy and make people laugh and bring people together. No matter what part of the world they’re living in, it really can connect people.”
Her speedy draw to director Sue Kim’s The Final of the Sea Ladies got here from being “so shocked that I did not know about this story,” she shared. “There are very few societies in the world that are matriarchal. The haenyeo is one of those [few] matriarchal societies in the world where women are actually the breadwinners, and they lead the community, and they work in a very cooperative way.”
Elaborating, Yousafzai stated: “There’s so much you learn from them — how they have a relationship with the ocean. In the documentary, you learn how climate change is impacting their lives. You also learn that a lot of these women are in their 60s, 70s and 80s, and some are in their 90s, still doing the job, but they could be the last ones. So we also show how there are some young haenyeo, the young sea women, who are taking interest in this, and they’re more like the TikTok generation who are sea diving and making TikTok videos. And they’re super cool. So there’s that hope that this story will inspire more of them to protect this.”
Yousafzai additionally mentioned Bread & Roses, which she government produced. That documentary premiered in June on Apple TV+ and appears on the impression of the autumn of Kabul on girls’s rights (Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence is a co-producer). “I’m so honored to be part of this documentary because it shares the stories of three Afghan women since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban,” she defined. “These women began to record their lives on their cell phones, and they show you how their lives are gradually changing because of these new restrictions that the Taliban [imposes].”
She mirrored on the feminine dentist who’s pressured to cover her accomplishment as a result of the Taliban forbids feminine achievement. “Afghanistan is the only country in the world that does not allow girls to complete their education beyond grade six. It’s shocking that we could live in this time,” she lamented.
When requested which U.S. presidential candidate would higher serve girls’s rights, Yousafzai responded, “It’s such an easy question.”
“Just go listen to both, and you will find the answer,” she continued. “One is clearly telling you that they will take away rights from women, and one is telling you that they want to protect [them]. So go, Kamala Harris, go.”
At age 11, Yousafzai shared that her dream was to turn out to be prime minister, and now she’s a producer. And whereas her activism right now seems totally different than she thought it might look then, her dedication has by no means wavered.
“It started with my story. And I was so lucky that people followed it, but I always [told] people, even in my interviews, I’m not a lone voice. There are many, many girls out there,” she stated. “So I hope that through the productions, [along] with other work that I’ll be doing, I help empower more girls.”
