LFA Alumni Vanessa Ford featured in Bloomberg Businessweek

29 June 2021

LFA alumni Vanessa Ford has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek this month to celebrate her pioneering YouTube Originals series ‘Super Sema’. The article expands on the explosion of African-led TV and film, in recent years, and how the monumental success of Disney’s ‘Black Panther’ in 2018 paved the way for diverse and educational series like ‘Super Sema’ to gain the backing of big names and big budgets within the mainstream industry.

Vanessa, who is also the co-founder of Nairboi based start-up Kukua Education Ltd., shares her ambition with Bloomberg:

“We want to be the Mickey Mouse of Africa, but with a strong learning component.”

 

Vanessa Ford - LFA Alumni

At LFA, our filmmakers learn the value of developing and honing a unique voice alongside their creative vision, harnessing the power of storytelling in an impactful way. Paying adoration to lead character Sema, a female superhero with courage and empathy as her key superpowers, Vanessa’s vision is a fantastic example of this value in practice; as she poignantly reconstructs the status quo of a male-dominated industry.

Nadine Zylstra, who oversees family programming at YouTube Originals, says:

“Hearing these pitches from young African talent, there is definitely the feeling that this is the generation that can use these digital tools to share their voice with the world.”

Nadine Zylstra - YouTube Originals Family Programming

Read the Bloomberg article here.

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