A decade after becoming the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in history, Malala Yousafzai is beginning her career as a film producer with the documentary “The Last of the Sea Women,” which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
At TheWrap TIFF 2024 Studio sponsored by Moët & Chandon and Boss Design, Yousafzai explained to editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman how she sees a connection between her new career and her ongoing activism work.
“A lot of people may not know storytelling is key to activism. I started my activism with storytelling, but I’ve been finding more ways to do that for other women and other girls around the world,” she said. “Documentaries, movies, TV shows are another great opportunity to tell stories from the perspective of young women and people of color and those who often don’t get a chance to be on the screen and to share their point of view.”
Directed by Sue Kim and produced by A24, “The Last of the Sea Women” follows the haenyeo, a group of female divers on Jeju Island in South Korea who for decades have harvested abalone, sea urchins, and other seafood in a sustainable way. Kim says that the haenyeo have a history of diving that goes back as early as the 14th century.
“They did so for centuries to support their families, to support the island, and they became breadwinners and matriarchs of the island,” she said. “So it’s this incredible community of very strong, empowered, financially independent women that existed in a deeply patriarchal society at a time when most women were not even allowed to work, and they’ve existed for centuries.”
But their way of life may be going extinct, as fewer younger women are interested in the profession while Jeju’s marine ecosystems are under threat both from warming ocean temperatures due to climate change and the decision by neighboring Japan to release radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima power plant damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
“The Last of the Sea Women” will be released on Apple TV+ in October.
Watch the trailer for the film and TheWrap’s interview with Kim and Yousafzai above.
