by Thinus Ferreira
Netflix has appointed South Africa's Kaye-Ann Williams as director of scripted content for Netflix Africa and she will join from February to oversee the video streaming service's scripted films and series in sub-Sahara Africa.
There is no word yet on how Kaye-Ann Williams' new role at Netflix aligns and fits in with what Dorothy Ghettuba has been doing at Netflix Africa as the director of original series for the continent.
In September 2024, filmmakers and insiders told TVwithThinus that Dorothy Ghettuba had been axed from Netflix for allegedly creating a toxic work environment, showing favouritism to filmmakers and other allegations.
Netflix through its corporate PR agency at the time told me that Dorothy Ghettuba isn't gone from Netflix and just on leave.
On Friday I again asked Netflix through its PR company about Dorothy Ghettuba, and Dorothy Ghettuba's tenure at Netflix and if she is still employed at the video streaming service, given the appointment of Kaye-Ann Williams in what is the same role as Dorothy Ghettuba's.
Netflix's response will be added here when received.
Kaye-Ann Williams joins Netflix Africa from Primedia Studios where she was the vice president of content for a few months since the middle of 2024.
Before Primedia Studios Kaye-Ann Williams was the head of scripted series and movies at Amazon MGM Studios and Prime Video for South Africa, until Amazon abruptly axed the unit at the beginning of last year.
Before that, Kaye-Ann Williams worked for several years at MultiChoice and M-Net overseeing series and film development and commissioning.
Besides the situation around Dorothy Ghettuba, Netflix also recently lost David Karanja who oversaw Netflix Africa's licensing of original content, as well as Tendeka Matatu who also exited the video streamer after three years where he was director of local language films.
Kaye-Ann Williams will be reporting into Ben Amadasun, Netflix vice president of Middle East & Africa content.
"I'm delighted to welcome Kaye-Ann to the team as we strengthen our long-term commitment to African storytelling," says Ben Amadasun, in a prepared quote.
"Kaye-Ann is a true champion of world-class storytelling and has worked with the best creative talent in South Africa, helping them to create some of the most ambitious projects on African television."
"I look forward to working alongside her to further build on the wonderful work the team has done so far to deliver compelling stories from Africa and to nurture our many local creative partnerships."
Bizarrely, the American trade website Deadline.com branded Netflix's general press release on Friday about Kaye-Ann Williams and Ben Amadasun's quote - something which is a basic executive appointment, announced through a press statement emailed out - an "exclusive".
The South African website Bizcommunity.com similarly slapped a ridiculous "exclusive" on Friday on exactly the same press release sent to Bizcommunity and other media by Netflix about Kaye-Ann Williams.
Besides the ridiculousness of two different places claiming "exclusive" over exactly the same Netflix appointment media announcement - which obviously can't both be true - is also the hilarious notion that a general press release that media didn't do any work for but was an emailed hand-out, can ever qualify as any kind of so-called "exclusive".
