Egypt's Second Netflix Original Is Set to Star Satirical Puppet Abla Fahita

Netflix's continued effort to commission more originals from the continent has yielded another series from Egypt in development, Deadlinereports.

The streaming platform is set to produce a comedy drama in collaboration with popular satirical puppet Abla Fahita, production company OKWRD, ASAP Productions and Amin El Masri as executive producer. This will be the second Netflix original to come from the country.

The show will chronicle Fahita's journey to stardom and how her life was turned upside down following it. Deadline notes that this will be the first time the character will be acting in a scripted series.

"We are very excited to be collaborating with Abla Fahita, one of the most prominent comedians in Egypt and the wider Arab region," Ahmed Sharkawi, director of international originals at Netflix, says in a statement. "We are looking forward to working with Abla Fahita in order to bring our Arab and international audience a fun innovative series full of laughter and excitement."

Fahita adds:

I always say that Egyptian comedy is a great product for export after the Egyptian cotton. And it's obvious how the world today is a sad place in dire need of laughter. and nothing beats the Egyptian Sense of humor to relieve the world of its misery.

More Netflix originals from Africa are expected to premiere in 2020, including Queen Sono—the South African series starring Pearl Thusi—that kicked off the platform's plan to make space for African storytelling. In the diaspora, Angolan-Italian writer and TV host Antonio Dikele Distefano created Zero—an original for Netflix that will give viewers of glimpse of what it's like to be young and black in Italy today.

"The big message we want to communicate to talent is you don't have to leave home to get big audiences, and you don't have to choose Hollywood versus your own country," Erik Barmack, Netflix vice president of international originals, said of the effort back in December 2018. "You can do both, and that, we believe, will be able to carry their audiences to their shows regardless of the language they are speaking or where the production comes from."