Netflix Germany to run Turkish-German workshop to combat scarcity of creatives

Netflix's Germany, Switzerland, and Austria content chief Katja Hofem says the streamer is facing a scarcity of creatives, particularly diverse writers. 

Hofem spoke at Series Mania, saying: "We face a scarcity of writers, producers, directors and in Germany, especially, we also see a scarcity when it comes to diverse writers. And we want to tell all the stories [we can] in the market.”

Hofem was joined by her Netflix European counterparts, including vice-president of Nordics (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland) content Jenny Stjernströmer Björk, and vice-president of France series Damien Couvreur. The three are working in close collaboration with the different territories, hoping to spark local creativity.

Netflix’s vice president of content for the DACH region said one of her "passion projects" is to tell migrant stories from Germany “that have not been told yet”. 

They may include stories from the Turkish community that came in the 1970s, and "the identities they [adopted] to fit into that society."

According to Hofem, alongside the Netflix Turkey team, the streaming giant has set up an academy for diverse writers, and is running a Turkish-German workshop that will ideally directly feed back into the Netflix development pipeline.