America Ferrera to Make Feature Directorial Debut With ‘I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter’
America Ferrera, most recently producer, director and star of “Superstore,” will make her debut as a feature film director for the Netflix movie “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.”
The film, produced by Anonymous Content and Macro, is Yvette Chavez’s (“Gentefied”) adaptation of the Erika L. Sánchez novel of the same title. Anonymous Content optioned the rights to the book under the company’s first look deal with Aevitas Creative Management. Sánchez serves as co-producer.
Sánchez’s young adult novel, published in 2017, tells the story of Julia Reyes, the teenage daughter of first generation Mexican immigrants who often clashes with her traditional parents and her sister Olga, who fits the model of the perfect Mexican daughter. When Olga is killed in an accident, it is rebellious Julia who must hold the family together.
“Years ago, I fell in love with Erika L. Sánchez’s stunning novel,” Ferrera said in a statement released Wednesday. The depth, wit and searing intelligence of her writing, and her young Latina heroine, struck me to my core and left me wanting so much more.”
Ferrera’s workplace comedy “Superstore” is in its 6th and final season on NBC. She also is producing and directing episodes of the second season of Netflix’s “Gentified.”
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Other credits for Ferrera include the 2002 film “Real Women Have Curves,” the ABC comedy “Ugly Betty,” Diego Luna’s biopic “Cesar Chavez,” the “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise films and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”
Ferrera co-founded the social justice organization Harness and the social platform She Se Puede, providing resources for the Latina community. She also was one of the founders of the Time’s Up movement and worked for the Biden/Harris and Georgia Senate grassroots campaigns during the 2021 Presidential elections.
Chávez is the co-creator, co-showrunner, and executive producer of “Gentefied,” produced by Ferrera and Macro Studios. She is currently writing “Flamin’ Hot’ for Searchlight Pictures and preparing to direct her first feature film “Fieras.”
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