Netflix Partners with Realness Institute on African Writers Initiative

Realness Institute, an organization founded to promote African content, is partnering with Netflix to create an Episodic Content Development Lab for writers in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

The program opens for submissions at the end of this month, with six writers to be selected to work on projects that will be developed and commissioned by the streamer.

“We strongly believe that Africa has a wealth of untold stories,” says Dorothy Ghettuba, who leads Netflix’s African original series. “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 will ensure our audience members see their lives reflected on screen.”

“We had fun shaping the program with the Netflix team,” said Elias Ribeiro, co-founder and creative director of Realness Institute. “We all share a love for storytelling and Netflix’s writer-centric approach is very much in line with our ethos.”

Mehret Mandefro, Realness Institute’s director of development and partnerships, added, “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.”