Los Angeles, CA – Jonás Cuarón (Gravity, Desierto) is working with journalist Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, a “Dreamer” and a DACA beneficiary to turn her upcoming book, Undocumented America into a TV Series. Cornejo Villavicencio, one of the first undocumented students admitted to Harvard’s undergraduate and Yale’s Ph.D. programs, has written several essays for The Atlantic, The New Republic and The New Inquiry and Interview Magazine.
Undocumented America which is being developed for Brad Weston‘s Makeready, will be a portrait of the experience of many immigrants in The United States and the challenges they face after they arrive to America. It is an experience Cornejo Villavicencio knows only too well, having been brought to the U.S. by her parents from from Ecuador.
“This is an important story, and one that needs to be told with urgency,” said Cuarón. “I am so happy to be working alongside Karla, who offers a passionate and personal voice to this complex issue.”
For Cornejo Villavicencio this is personal and she is very passionate and vocal about the fate of Dreamers. “Trump doesn’t get to write our funeral,” she said. “Neither does the media. Neither do I. We are alive as all hell, and I think that’s where the story begins.”
This announcement comes on the heels of another “Dreamer” project from Gina Rodriguez’s I Can And I Will production company being announce just a day earlier. The hourlong dramedy about the family of a teenager in a similar situation based on writer Rafael Agustin (Jane The Virgin) family is being developed for the CW and is entitled simply Illegal.
Cuarón’s last project, the indie film Desierto was also an immigration story starring Gael García Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Alondra Hildalgo. However, he came to prominance in the U.S. as he made his major feature film writing Gravity with his father Alfonso Cuarón.
Cuarón is repped by UTA, Hillary Bibicoff and attorney Henry Holmes. Cornejo Villavicencio is repped by Foundry Literary + Media.
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