Now we’re talking about Black Lives Matter, and Black stories matter. We’ve been so quiet, and our stories have just never been told.
I’ve often said that Africa, as a continent, we’ve remained so quiet. So this is an African story that the world has bought into. They’ve made other projects, like Blood and Water, a South African production that became a number one hit in America the weekend that it came out. I’m assuming their plan wasn’t simply to improve what they could offer their African audience, but to take your stories out to the world? They are such a great team of creatives and have a very collaborative approach to work. I pray there are many more, because it will be great to see so many more filmmakers and storytellers empowered on the continent, but we are the first. We are the first African production company that Netflix has signed a multiple title deal with. But it’s the first of its type on the continent, it’s never been done. The conversation started months and months ago, we’ve been talking about it for ages. When did you start discussing an exclusive slate deal? And in 2014 we were like, let’s get into the world of moviemaking.
It was our first foray into making films after we set up EbonyLifeTV in 2013. Yeah, literally every single film we have made has gone to Netflix, starting from our first in 2015 called Fifty, which was basically about these four women about to turn 50 and going through a sort of midlife crisis. Have all your films been on Netflix already? 2.Īhead of Oloture’s release, Abudu talks exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter about EbonyLife’s grand plans, how Netflix has been ahead of the curve when it comes to Africa and why stories from the continent don’t always have to be about the slave trade.
The first title from the deal, Oloture - following a young Nigerian journalist who goes undercover to expose the world of human trafficking - is now set for launch on Netflix on Oct.