The Last of the Sea Women Producer Malala Yousafzai Wants Everyone to Know About the Haenyeo

[The following contains spoilers for The Last of the Sea Women.]

Sue Kim remembers the first time she saw the haenyeo. The director was eight when she traveled to Jeju Island with her family and came across a group of women clad in wetsuits and masks. "They were so loud and bold, I just instantly fell in love with them," Kim told TV Guide. Haenyeo, which translates literally to "sea women," are divers in South Korea's Jeju Island who for centuries have made their living harvesting seafood from the ocean floor. These women left a searing impression on Kim during her initial visit to the island, but it was a later encounter that planted the seeds for the Apple TV+ documentary The Last of the Sea Women.

Around 10 years ago, Kim returned to Jeju Island. "Where are all the younger haenyeo?" she recalled asking an 84-year-old haenyeo who had just emerged from the sea. Kim had looked around, and everyone seemed to be a grandmother. "She is the one that told me, 'This is it, we are the last of the haenyeo,'" the director said. "That's really the moment this film, which had been an idea in my head for a long time, took on a new urgency." Kim didn't know what shape or form it would take yet, but she knew she wanted to document the haenyeo — most of whom are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s — before they were gone.

Kim found a partner in Malala Yousafzai. In March 2021, Apple TV+ announced a partnership with the Nobel laureate that would include original programming for the platform. The Last of the Sea Women, which Yousafzai joined as a producer, is her first project through this partnership. "I could not have found a better story to begin my journey," she said. 

The documentary, which was released on Apple TV+ on Oct. 11, premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. TV Guide spoke to Kim and Yousafzai about how it came together, the impact of the Fukushima treated water release on the haenyeo, and the messages about activism they hope to convey. 

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Malala, what made this the right first project for you to produce?
Yousafzai: When I announced my partnership with Apple, I wanted to work with women directors, writers, and artists who can help bring new perspectives to our screens. The Last of the Sea Women was one of the first pictures that I saw. When I first heard about the haenyeo, I was amazed and surprised that, first of all, this matriarchal society actually exists in the world and is one of the few. A lot of us don't know about it; even I had never heard of it before. I wanted to learn more about them, and I wanted everybody else to learn more about them. So that's why I immediately said yes to Sue.

What about the producing role surprised you the most while working on this?
Yousafzai: The role of the producer is a really exciting one, because you get to work with so many incredible directors and people who are imagining so many of these incredible documentaries and scripts for TV shows and movies. I feel so lucky that I get to actually meet so many people who are coming up with these ideas, and Sue Kim is one of those people. I, as a producer, am so committed to spreading the message around the importance of watching the documentary and talking about it. This is such an important story and I hope that I am able to bring more important stories like these to the screen, where you get to meet fierce, strong women who are telling a very unique story about how they are redefining empowerment for themselves.

Sue, the major news event in this documentary is the Fukushima treated water release in 2023. How much did you know about the release before filming?
Kim: We did know about the impending treated radioactive water release from Fukushima; the government of Japan had announced it in April of 2021, which was just before we started filming. I knew it might be a bit of an environmental crisis that the haenyeo themselves would confront. But the thing is, once the Japanese government announced it, they never told anyone when the water was going to start to be released. So I didn't know how in depth it would intersect with our haenyeos' stories while we were filming. Then we learned more about the water release at the same time the haenyeo did in that town hall, where there's all these environmental activists that really wanted to make sure the haenyeo were aware of what was going to happen — they were going to be one of the most vulnerable communities to the water release. What we couldn't have predicted is the way that the haenyeo would react. Even though we knew it was an impending issue, what we couldn't have known is that the haenyeo would be so irate about it when they first heard, and then quickly turned that into a determined activism. So that portion of the film, it really took off even though it's due to a very unfortunate incident. You really get to see the haenyeos' passion for the ocean, their love for the next generation, their wanting to pass on cleaner waters. 

And then the the turn of having one of our haenyeos [Jang Soon Duk] invited to speak at the UN, I believe that happened because our haenyeos showed up at that Jeju Island protest. [Jang] spoke so eloquently on stage, all the news organizations really loved that story and she became a little bit of an activism star from that moment. I think that led to the UN invitation. So all these things were very fortuitous things that happened that I think just perfectly portray what ardent environmentalists they are.

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I thought it was striking how the documentary showed the demonstrations against the water release and showed Jang Soon Duk speaking at the UN, and then showed the release still happening. For both of you, what message about activism are you hoping to convey?
Kim: I do think it's an unfortunate incident that we show the haenyeo standing up and fighting the release of the water so ardently, but the water does continue to be released. There's a moment where you hear them and their reaction to the news, and there's such a sadness, a profound sorrow. But what you also see is that they're not going to give up fighting. And one thing that I learned in the making of this film is that activism is a lifelong endeavor. You don't go to one protest and expect your intended consequence to happen. You have to constantly show up, you have to constantly be speaking out about it. And sometimes it might take five years, ten years, or it may never happen, whatever the cause that you're fighting for. But our haenyeo seem to know that implicitly. They seem to understand this is something that we're just going to keep fighting. And you see them talking about it with the younger generation at the end, at the Haenyeo Festival, where they're like, we can't give up. This is our ocean. We have more days ahead; we have to protect our culture.

Yousafzai: I have been in some of those rooms for a while, speaking about the issues that impact girls and access to education. And I felt a sense of connection when I saw them protesting on the streets in South Korea but also then speaking at the UN Geneva headquarters. And just this urge to be able to make your call loud and clear so that people realize the urgency of the impact of the release of, for example, the treated water. If people don't speak out about it, a lot of these issues just are put aside and nobody ever talks about them. So it's something that you realize you have to do, it sometimes becomes that last resort. And I can fully understand why the haenyeo would decide to actually do a protest. How could they actually sustain it and pass it on to the next generations if the ocean life is under this threat from climate-related events, but also to the release of this treated water? And that's why they spoke out, because they were worried about their own protection, but also about the protection in the future as well. In these moments, sometimes you could feel helpless, which is very true, especially when you have been doing it for such a long time. But you also, at the same time, recognize that that there is no other path but to find these ways in which you can make your call louder.

As someone who has felt that sense of helplessness in your activism, did you get to speak with the haenyeo to share about your experiences?
Yousafzai: I just met them at TIFF, and two of them are here [Jang and Lee Hee-Soon attended the festival]. They joined the premiere screening, we did interviews together as well. I would say that we had very little time to actually talk, but we did hear each other a lot during the interviews — and we had some moments where we actually exchanged our appreciation for each other. And I must tell you that they have so much love inside them that they keep pouring onto you.

Kim: They had both seen the film on the computer prior to coming here, but when we were in the theater with the full sold-out crowd of spectators, I was sitting behind Jang Soon Duk, one of our main subjects that goes to the UN. From the first five minutes she was constantly grabbing tissues. She's seen this film before, but she was crying. And when we went on stage for the Q & A, the minute our two haenyeo subjects came out, the entire room gave them a standing ovation. Jang Soon Duk broke down sobbing; you could just tell that it was such a deeply emotional moment for her. Because even if she had seen the film before, she was in the room with an audience of strangers that were applauding her because they had just seen a story of her life. And then we found out after the screening, that she had not seen a movie in a theater since before she was married, which was 50 years ago. So imagine never having seen a movie for the past 50 years, and then you go into a theater and you watch your own life reflected back at you, and you get two standing ovations from strangers all over the world.

The Last of the Sea Women is available to stream on Apple TV+.