Martin Starr | Hispanically Yours

Dascha Polanco is a good Samaritan…

The 37-year-old Dominican actress is set to star in MGM’s superhero thriller movie Samaritan.

Polanco joins a cast that includes Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, Sylvester Stallone, Martin Starr, Pilou Asbækand Moises Arias.

Walton will play a young boy who’s out to discover if a mythic superhero, who vanished 20 years earlier following a tragic event, is still alive.

Julius Avery is directing from a screenplay by Bragi F. Schut, with additional writing by Mark L. Smith, Zak Penn, and Chuck MacLean.

The story is based on Schut’s original idea.

The film is scheduled for release on December 11 via United Artists Releasingwith Universal handling foreign.

Polanco portrayed Dayanara Diaz on Netflix’s Orange is the New Blackfor seven-seasons and starred in Ava DuVernay’s 2019 Netflix limited series When They See Us. She’ll soon be seen in her first lead film role in Adrian Martinez’s indie dark comedy iCreep, and Warner Brothers’ adaption of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heightsthis summer. Her additional credits include the FXanthology series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Storyand films including Joy, The Perfect Match, The Cobblerand Gimme Shelter.

Arias first made a name for himself as series regular on the Disney Channel hit original series Hannah Montana, and has since gone on to appear in several Sundance films including Kings of Summer, The Land and Stanford Prison Experiment. Last year, he appeared in CBS Films’ Five Feet Apart as well as the Sundance World Dramatic Competition Special Jury Award winner Monos and the SXSW opening weekend film The Wall of Mexico.

It looks like Liz W. Garcia’s first feature film will be released in the United States.

Focus World and Screen Media Films have partnered to acquire the U.S. distribution rights to the 35-year-old Latina filmmaker’s The Lifeguard, which made its debut at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Written and directed by Garcia, The Lifeguard marks her first feature after working as a writer and producer on television shows like Cold Case and co-creating Memphis Beat with her husband Joshua Harto.

Kristen Bell stars alongside Mamie Gummer, Martin Starr and Amy Madigan in the film, which centers on Leigh (Bell), almost 30 and living a seemingly perfect life in New York. But when her career and love life both come crashing down, she flees to her suburban hometown and regresses back into high school life. Picking up right where her teen halcyon days left off, she moves into her old room with her parents, hangs out with friends who never left town and reclaims her high school job as a condo-complex lifeguard. But as Leigh enjoys shirking adult life and responsibilities and enters into an illicit affair, she begins a chain reaction that affects those closest to her.

Focus World, the alternative label owned and operated by Focus Features, and Screen Media will release The Lifeguard in theaters and on digital platforms in the summer.

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Dascha Polanco to Star in the Superhero Thriller “Samaritan”

Garcia’s “The Lifeguard” Acquired by Focus World & Screen Media Films