Over the past year, there has been a clear appetite for fresh African content to star on global streaming platforms. Netflix has recently enjoyed much success with its first two African original series: Queen Sono and Blood & Water.
Realness Institute today announced its partnership with global streaming service Netflix to create an Episodic Content Development Lab for writers in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.
The Writer’s Lab submission will go live at the end of November on realness.institute/
This partnership will result in 6 writers selected to work on projects that will be developed and commissioned by Netflix.
The selected writers will be paid a stipend of 2000 USD per month to participate and will be expected to be available full time for a period of 3 months, from June to September 2021.
Kenya’s Dorothy Ghettuba is Netflix’s lead for African Original Series. She says of the partnership, “At Netflix, we believe that great stories come from anywhere and can be loved everywhere. We strongly believe that Africa has a wealth of untold stories.”
Adding, “As we grow our slate of Originals in Africa, partnerships with organizations like Realness will help us achieve our goal of investing in writers who will bring diverse genres of authentic, local stories that cater for every mood and will ensure our members see their lives reflected on screen.”
Co-founder and Creative Director of Realness Institute, Elias Ribeiro, added, “We had fun shaping the program with the Netflix team. We all share a love for storytelling and Netflix’s writer-centric approach is very much in line with our ethos.”
Since the 2015 inception of Realness Institute, a non-profit organization committed to fostering a new wave of African storytelling, they have delivered 5 editions of its Screenwriters’ Residency and recently the first Creative Producer Indaba as a Development Executive Traineeship.
Realness Institute will be expanding their offering in 2021 to the episodic content space.
This is a further step towards the Institute’s mission to empower storytellers on the continent and the diaspora and push the African audio-visual industry forward. Netflix brings its expertise in episodic content development, production and insight into global content trends.
“This program is a response to the dramatically changing broadcasting ecosystem which has a very important role to play in building a thriving media ecosystem in local markets and providing episodic creators with distribution opportunities,” adds veteran Ethiopian broadcaster and Realness Institute Director of Development and Partnerships Mehret Mandefro.
