Apple TV+ sets ‘Korea’s mermaids’ doc as first project from Malala partnership

Malala Yousafzai

Apple original films has commissioned a new untitled documentary about the legendary ‘haenyeo’ of South Korea, as the first project from the Apple TV+ partnership with Malala Yousafzai’s production company Extracurricular.

Sue Kim will direct the project, which will see Yousafzai and Erika Kennair, Extracurricular’s president of productions, produce alongside A24.

The documentary tells the story of ‘Korea’s mermaids,’ elderly free divers whose work catching seafood off the coast of Jeju Island has supported their community for generations.

However, the haenyeo’s numbers have dwindled in the past few decades but now their youngest descendants are helping to revive the revered and often dangerous lifestyle of their ancestors, while fighting to protect the ocean from environmental threat.

Women’s rights activist, youngest ever Nobel laureate, and I Am Malala author, Yousafzai inked a multiyear programming partnership with the streamer last year to work on content spanning dramas, comedies, documentaries, animation, and children’s series.

This as yet untitled documentary will join Apple TV+’s growing factual slate, which already includes the four-part Earvin “Magic” Johnson docuseries They Call Me Magic; the Emmy-nominated Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry; and the recently announced untitled films about the life of actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, and actor and comedian Steve Martin.