Angela Ruhinda, the lead screenwriter for Showmax’s ‘Big Girl, Small World.’
Eight years ago, Angela Ruhinda left Los Angeles — and the trappings of Hollywood — to return to her homeland Tanzania. The move, though personally fulfilling, has been a major adjustment for her career as a screenwriter, she tells OkayAfrica in an interview. But despite the hurdles of adapting to a new creative environment, Angela has successfully established herself as a screenwriter and producer under her own umbrella — Black Unicorn Studios.
Her latest project Big Girl, Small World is a Showmax series about a plus-sized woman’s journey of self-discovery after a humiliating scandal. The show marks several firsts for Ruhinda, who previously made history by writing and producing Binti, the first Tanzanian film to stream on Netflix.
Big Girl, Small World is her first time writing for a TV series and her first time creating for a Kenyan audience. Ruhinda worked with an all-female team of writers — Gathoni Kamau, Wanjiru Kairu, Safina Iqbal and Kui Mwai — to bring the story to life.
Speaking from her home in Dar es Salaam, Ruhinda talks to OkayAfrica about making space for and writing about African women who are flawed, adjusting her career to working in East Africa, and the pressures of creating content for popular streaming platforms.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OkayAfrica: Congratulations on the success of Big Girl, Small World. How did you come on board as the lead writer?
Angela Ruhinda: It was 2022. The show’s director and producer Nick Mutuma reached out to me and he told me that he had pitched a romantic comedy feature to Showmax. He'd actually already told them, ‘I have the writer in mind.’ We've known each other for years. Showmax said they liked the idea so much, they wanted it to be a TV series.
I loved the idea of writing for a plus-sized character. I'd never seen that on TV before, especially African television. So I agreed to be part of the team. It’s one of the top experiences that I've had as a writer.
How did you decide how you wanted to portray the main character, Ciku?
There was a lot of discussion amongst the [writing team]. We didn't want Ciku to feel like every other woman we've seen on TV. The important thing was that she should be flawed. Just because she's plus-size doesn't mean that we had to make her this perfect person and her imperfection was her size. There were other things to make her more interesting.
I feel like we all wanted the audience to see themselves in Ciku, regardless of what you actually look like. Ciku is flawed, but she's really a woman trying to figure it out, and I think all of us can relate to that. It's going to be messy, but you're going to figure it out!
Was it a struggle being the only Tanzanian in a largely Kenyan production with a Nairobi-based story?
I did spend all of high school in Kenya, so it's familiar to me. However, You know, there are certain things that change with time, specifically language. Like with Sheng (Kiswahili slang), I feel like it changes every week. So I would just write the scripts in English or Kiswahili. And then one of our writers, once we had locked in everything, would go through it adjusting for characters who spoke Sheng. That was the biggest challenge for me.
How unusual is it to have an all-female team of writers for a series in East Africa, if at all?
It's not that common…. It's not heard of to have just women writing for a production. But even though we're all women, there's still diversity in the way that we think and our backgrounds. I think people believe that if you just have one woman to represent everyone, it is enough. That's not how it works.
The all-female writing team of ‘Big Girl, Small World.” From left to right: Safina Iqbal, Gathoni Kamau, Kui Mwai, Angela Ruhinda and Wanjiru Kairu.
Photo courtesy of Showmax.
How has moving back helped or hindered your career as a screenwriter?
Initially, I made the decision to move back because of my family. It was a personal decision. Los Angeles is really far away, and I wanted to be closer to my parents. Obviously, it did slow things down. I had to learn the landscape. When I first moved back, there weren't as many opportunities or as many projects happening as there would be in Los Angeles. I think it has become better, but I'm not on the same level. Of course, I don't have any regrets, because it has forced me to also create. It's given me the opportunity to tell African stories while actually being in Africa, and it's nice to have that on my IMDb.
I'm excited to see what's next. I don't want to limit myself to just certain stories or only telling stories from here. I definitely want to do more Pan African stuff and more international stories. I'm currently developing a lot of things too.
Tell us the things you’re developing.
We are currently in post-production for our second feature, which is a holiday movie. I'm very excited for that project. Hopefully it'll be out by the end of the year. We are looking for a home for it. I'm trying to see if we can do stuff in West Africa as well. So I am pitching a lot of things for the continent and even outside the continent.
Speaking of finding a home for your upcoming movie, is it the ideal for most East African productions today to land on streaming platforms?
Right now, the best way to reach the biggest audience is through streaming. I don't see another way for us to reach the biggest number of people, especially on the continent, without the streamers.
[Being on streamers] can feel [like success for East African productions]. It certainly feels that way, because what would be the alternative? Obviously, there's the traditional distribution of getting into the cinemas and the local stations. But it's a lot more work, and I think the audience would be smaller. So I think right now, everyone's aiming for the streamers.
On the other hand, they are forcing us to step up, especially with Netflix. They have certain requirements, so even production value across the countries in this region have gone up. Because if you're aiming for one of these streamers, it has to look a certain way. So not everything is going to be licensed, but we're now in that practice of making quality stuff with a good production value.
In ‘Big Girl, Small World,’ June Njenga plays Ciku, an uber-successful, plus-sized radio personality with a tendency to choose the wrong men.
Photo courtesy of Showmax.
How has your writing or filmmaking changed since the release of your first feature, Binti in 2021?
How I approached Binti was such a learning experience, especially as a producer. I took so many lessons from that experience and applied them to this production. I know who to hire now. I know who works best in this department. I know we can get that for cheaper and still have the same quality. I know more about the kind of equipment I need.
As for writing, I spent a lot more time rewriting the second feature. The story evolved a lot more than Binti. I think what informed us for this second go-around was that we were more conscious of the audience. Because as an artist, you don't want to just make things for other people. You also want to make them for yourself and just help your audience receive it.
But this is still a business, if you want to sell your film, you have to make something that's marketable. So it was almost like I was writing with my producer hat on and my marketing hat on at the same time, which is a different experience.
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