Barack and Michelle Obama’s oldest daughter Malia is currently working on a short film that will be released under Donald Glover’s new production company Gilga.
Glover recently revealed the news during his interview with GQ that the two would be collaborating on a new project.
“The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once,” he recalled of their conversation. While adding, “You’re Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”
According to Fam Udeorji, a creative partner at Gilga, “Understanding somebody like Malia’s cachet means something. But we really wanted to make sure she could make what she wanted—even if it was a slow process,” he said, adding, “It’s more about diversity of thought than just, like, diversity for optics. You know what I mean?”
Most recently, Malia had the opportunity to work on Glover’s Amazon Prime series Swarm, which debuted early last month.
According to Swarm co-creator Janine Nabers, Malia collaborated with her to write the pivotal episode “Girl, Bye,” which follows the life of a young woman obsessed with a fictional R&B star who is seemingly based on Beyoncé.
“Girl, Bye” is probably one of the wildest episodes,” Nabers said. “I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people. It’s pretty dope. I’m really proud of it.”
She added, “I’m really excited for everyone to get to know [Malia’s] work and the work of the [other] writers on the show.”
Before working as a production assistant on Halle Berry’s CBS sci-fi drama series Extant, the Harvard grad had apprenticeships on Lena Dunham’s Girls and at the Weinstein Company.
