EXCLUSIVE: Prolific doc makers from each side of the Atlantic are teaming up for a doc collection on Afrobeats icon Fela Kuti.
Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams and his One Story Up banner has teamed with BAFTA-winning UK producer Andy Mundy-Fort‘s DocHearts to create this system, which we perceive is more likely to be a four-part restricted collection on the African music pioneer.
Entry has been secured to these near the late Nigerian star, whose funeral in 1997 attracted a whole lot of hundreds of individuals. His deal with meshing West African music with funk and jazz, alongside along with his ultra-charismatic performances, made him one of many twentieth Century’s most vital musicians, influencing the likes of Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Jay-Z and Kanye West.
“We’re embarking on a landmark challenge to inform the definitive story of a radical African icon whose fearless fusion of music and politics shook the world and whose affect nonetheless reverberates powerfully at present,” Mundy-Fort instructed Deadline.
We perceive the challenge has pushed vital curiosity, notably amongst streamers.
Mundy-Fort, who directed and produced the BAFTA Tv-winning doc White Nanny, Black Little one in 2024, met Williams – who is understood for his Academy Award-winning brief movie Music By Prudence and different docs equivalent to Life Animated – on the Sheffield DocFest in the identical 12 months.
“I knew Roger from his movies, that are so spectacular,” mentioned Mundy-Fort. “We did a hearth chat at Sheffield, and I used to be actually impressed by somebody telling true tales the best way I needed to. Our lenses each level in the direction of those that are marginalised.”
He added that DocHearts and One Story Up had entered right into a “utterly wholesome and healthful” U.S.-UK partnership. With cash for unscripted and doc initiatives onerous to search out on each side of the pond, such co-production agreements have gotten extra commonplace, particularly at improvement stage.
Mundy-Fort, who launched DocHearts in 2016, is greatest identified for Channel 5 doc White Nanny, Black Little one, which was co-produced with Tigerlily Productions. His different productions embrace function doc Misan Harriman: Shoot the Folks, set for a pageant run this 12 months, and quite a few TV exhibits, branded content material gadgets and docs. He was named Mentor of the 12 months on the awards of the Edinburgh TV Competition’s charity, The TV Basis, in 2025.
Wiliams, in the meantime, was the primary African American to win an Academy Award, for 2009 brief Music By Prudence. He has just lately directed Netflix’s Stamped From the Starting; Cassandro, Prime Video’s biographical drama a few homosexual skilled wrestler; and HBO Max doc Like to Love You, Donna Summer season. Additional again credit embrace HBO doc The Apollo, Emmy winner Life Animated and God Loves Uganda.
He’s thought of one of many U.S. most distinguished proponents of inclusive filmmaking and addressed the DEI pullback many studios are participating in underneath strain from President Donald Trump. Paramount World, for instance, vowed to finish DEI insurance policies and rent a bias ombudsman at CBS Information as a part of the settlement to get its merger with Skydance Media over the road.
“Let’s simply say DEI is alive and effectively at One Story Up,” mentioned Williams in an interview with Deadline in Might. “That is our mission. It’s all the time been our mission, and we’ll all the time give alternatives to individuals from marginalized communities, outsiders.”
Mundy-Fort praised Williams for his work in inclusive filmmaking. “Roger has actually completed phenomenal work on growing visibility and maintaining inclusion at forefront of individuals’s minds on the highest degree,” he mentioned. “This partnership actually speaks to one thing that has to turn into an growing precedence for corporations: To forge relationships and create superpowers.”
Williams is represented by WME and Granderson Des Rochers. Mundy-Fort is represented by United Brokers.
