Apple Original Films has announced a new untitled documentary film from Extracurricular and A24, featuring the story of the legendary “haenyeo” of South Korea’s Jeju Island.
The film is directed by Peabody Award nominee Sue Kim (“The Speed Cubers”), and is the first project from the Apple TV+ partnership with Malala Yousafzai’s production company Extracurricular. The film 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. Matriarchs, breadwinners and rowdy grandmas, 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 looming environmental threat.
The co-production hails from Extracurricular, the production company of women’s rights activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, partnering with Apple TV+ to create original programming, and A24, who is also collaborating with Apple on the upcoming Steve Martin documentary.
Yousafzai and Erika Kennair, Extracurricular’s president of productions, will produce alongside A24.
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