“It’s offered a mirror to check how we’re doing,” Caspian Films on Investment Readiness and giving female auteurs a voice
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What happens when a creator’s authenticity is compromised or lost entirely on the journey between idea inception and final delivery? It’s an issue that married business owners Aiwan Obinyan and Dr. Tamanda Walker have encountered often during their time working as storytellers. So much so that it inspired them to found AiAi Studios, a production house that’s levelling the playing field when it comes to unearthing stories from Black and under-represented creators.
“It’s about promoting the unapologetic, authentic and unmolested voices of Black women,” says Obinyan of the ethos that runs throughout everything this Leeds-based studio puts its mind to. Starting in the music industry before working in the audio and film production world, Obinyan noticed a questionable trend in the types of stories that tended to break through. “Positive voices rarely got a look in. It was always the overly sexualised stuff because sex sells,” she explains. “It was always a certain kind of Black woman’s voice that got the light of day.”
Together with cultural consultant and researcher Walker, Obinyan formed AiAi Studios to fix this problem: “We focus on attracting Black women who want to tell their stories in their own way, on their own terms, without it being whitewashed, sexualised or sensationalised,” continues Obinyan, unpacking their company’s speciality subject, something that takes the form of podcasts, documentaries, film and music. “We work with some of the biggest Black women in the world to get their stories out in the right way. And everything we do is underpinned by the rigorous research of Black scholars who know our communities too.”
The company doesn’t limit its remit to focus solely on Black creators; any under-represented voice is welcome, from queer to neurodiverse and everything in between. However, its wider goal is to share perspectives from the margins, on all manner of topics in the cultural conversation. As a result, AiAi Studios has attracted the attention of big-name clients like Gal-Dem, Gay Times, Audible and Nike and helped to reframe the conversation around complex, mainstream topics in the process.
“We know there’s a hunger for these types of stories all year-round and not just during Pride, Black History Month or International Women’s Day,” adds Walker, pointing towards a four-part documentary series they created for Channel 4 in the lead-up to the Rugby World Cup. “For Channel 4 we told the stories of four underrepresented protagonists and showed how rugby had been critically important to them. Emmett, for example, was a Trans player we profiled who set up the Transmanian Devils and it provoked a conversation about the Rugby Football Union’s decision to ban Trans players from competing in the game,” she explains. “It’s about having the safest possible space to turn up the volume on the voices who are less heard during production.”
Another key aspect of the business is cultural consultancy and helping to change the sector from the inside out. As active players in this world, Obinyan and Walker have seen too many examples of Black or under-represented voices only being called upon during key annual campaign moments or commissioners not having fully informed views of the stories they want to tell. It’s something they’d like to remedy.
“Our content is needed all year round,” says Walker. “It doesn’t have to be seasonal work; people want to hear these perspectives on all manner of issues so educating the decision makers who hold the budget strings about how to commission people is what our Cultural Consultant work was born out of – just doing a bit of advocacy around what is really needed to nurture marginalised talent.”
Throughout 2024, Obinyan and Walker have been working on our Creative Enterprise Investment Readiness scheme to help take their success to greater heights. “We’re looking to get investment to expand on what we’ve already done,” explains Obinyan on why now was the right time to level up. “Through our work, we’ve proven that the audience and clients are there and that people want to hear our stories – but we need investment to exponentially expand that.”
By working alongside a dedicated industry mentor, the pair have seen positive results even at an early stage. “It’s already paying off,” smiles Obinyan. “We took their feedback, rebuilt our pitch deck, went out and got a really good response. There was a direct translation between our mentor’s expertise, us listening and then getting a great reaction,” she reasons. “There’s so much that I didn’t know – and that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. Investment Readiness has dispelled a lot of that fog.”
The duo also hope to help remove some of the misconceptions regarding the investability of their sector, ultimately emerging as a company that has forged new ground that others can follow. “I’d like to think we will have had some influence on commissioners seeing us and other Black or minority-led businesses as people they can commission year-round,” says Walker, looking ahead to their company’s long-term future goals. “I hope we continue to offer a safe space and a pipeline for talent to come through and find work in the industry.”
Words and interview by Simon Bland