Sodi to Star in the Original Telenovela “Señorita Pólvora”

Camila Sodi is returning to the world of telenovelas

The 27-year-old actress and model, who starred in the telenovela Inocente de Ti with Valentino Lanús and Helena Rojo in 2004–2005, will star in the original telenovela Señorita Pólvora.

Camila Sodi

The first co-production for Sony Pictures Television and Televisa under a join 5-year deal was inspired by the real life story of abeauty queen whose alleged connections to the underworld and a romantic affair with an assassin ultimately led to her untimely demise.

Sodi, the niece of former telenovela starThalía, will star opposite Iván Sánchez and José María de Tavira.

Señorita Pólvora follows Valentina (Sodi), a beautiful, well-to-do young women who falls for a hit man only to find out that her love, in addition to her own family, belongs to of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels. Her explosive life and gradual descent into the world of crime is chronicled by a journalist who kindles a burning flame for the deadly beauty queen.

“Señorita Pólvora is the first of many series that we will produce with Sony Pictures Television. With this production pipeline, we are bringing new stories and content with different perspectives to the marketplace. We are confident that these original series will captivate our audience from the very beginning,” said Antonio Alonso, director general, Planning and International, Televisa Productions.

The telenovela will be produced in Mexico by Sony Pictures Television, and will air across multiple Televisa platforms and on UniMás in the U.S.

Señorita Pólvora is also being sold across the rest of Latin America by Sony Pictures Television while Televisa will distribute across the east and south of Europe; Sony Pictures Television and Televisa will jointly distribute the series throughout the rest of the world.

Daniel Ucros (El Mariachi) serves as executive producer.

Rodriguez’s “El Mariachi” to Be Made Into a Spanish-Language Series

Robert Rodriguez’s debut film is getting a brand new life…

Sony Pictures Television has announced plans to produce 70 episodes of El Mariachi, an original series based on the 45-year-old Mexican American director’s 1992 cult film of the same name.

El Mariachi

In 2011, El Mariachi was selected as an addition to the National Film Registry of films for preservation by the Library of Congress for it’s “enduring significance to American Culture.”

The Spanish-language drama marks the first time Sony and its Colombian partner Teleset will produce a series entirely in Mexico.

Soy tu Fan star Ivan Arana takes on the role of the lovestruck, revenge-seeking mariachi who wages war against fearsome drug cartels.

El Mariachi also features Mexican actors Martha Higareda and Julio Bracho.

“Staying true to the story, we are producing the series in Mexico, shooting in magnificent locations and utilizing some of the country’s best talent,” said Angelica Guerra, Sony senior vice president of production in Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic market.

The series will air on Sony Entertainment Television in Latin America and on a yet-to-be-announced U.S. network.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez’s latest film, Machete Kills, will have its world premiere on September 19 at the Fantastic Fest in Austin.

Rodriguez’s El Rey Network Partnering with Univision

Robert Rodríguez is getting into business with Univision

The Spanish-language network has announced a new partnership with El Rey Network, the upcoming English-language cable network from the 44-year-old Mexican American filmmaker and John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa’s FactoryMade.

Robert Rodriguez

El Rey is set to launch at the end of the year via Comcast. 

Univision will be responsible for the back-office operations, sales and distribution of the network.

“The El Rey Network is going to be the home of kick-ass entertainment,” said Rodriguez at Univision’s upfront presentation.

The first shows from El Rey, according to the El Mariachi director, will be a TV version of his and Quentin Tarantino’s Dusk Till Dawn film and a still-unnamed action series developed by Fringe and Star Trek Into Darkness producers Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci’s K/O Paper Products.

Rubio to Headline Docu-Series for BMP Latin…

Paulina Rubio is about to get real

The 41-year-old Mexican singer has signed on to appear in an English-language docu-series for Bunim/Murray Prods.’s new division, BMP Latin, which will focus on developing unscripted and scripted programming for Hispanic audiences, as well as adapting the company’s unscripted formats for Spanish-language and bilingual audiences in the U.S.

Paulina Rubio

Rubio’s docu-series will explore the professional and personal life of the multi-hyphenate Latin superstar —a singer, actor, model and Mexican business woman who has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide. The series will offer an intimate look at how she balances fame and her life as a first-time mother.

But Rubio isn’t the only Latin artist getting a reality series…

Daddy Yankee will star in a Spanish-language reality series set in the world of Latin urban music. The show will offer an inside look at the life of the man who brought reggaeton to the United States, his wife/manager Mireddys González and their growing roster of artists.

Meanwhile, BMP Latin will produce an English-language docu-series about the Leonardo Lopez family, Mexican Americans living the American dream in Encino, California, which has been called the “Beverly Hills of the Valley.” Owners of the successful El Mariachi restaurant chain, Pico Rivera Sports Arena, and fashion brand Pink Horses, this family works hard and plays hard, spending their weekends competing in Charrería rodeo competitions. Set in Los Angeles, the No. 1 Hispanic market in the United States, the docu-series will offer a look at the ultimate subculture.

Rodriguez to Launch Latino-Themed Entertainment Network

Robert Rodriguez is partnering with Comcast to launch a Latino-themed network…

The 43-year-old Mexican-American director—whose first feature film El Mariachi was recently selected for preservation by the National Film Registry—and FactoryMade Ventures executives John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa are creating El Rey, an English-language general entertainment network aimed at Latino audiences.

Robert Rodriguez

Distributed by Comcast, the nation’s largest provider with more than 22 million subscribers, El Rey will offer a mix of reality, scripted and animated series, movies, documentaries, news, music, comedy and sports programming.

“This partnership with Comcast signals an important moment for the Latino community in this country – we are passionate about creating a wildly entertaining destination that we can be proud of by appealing to both Latino and mass market audiences,” said Rodriguez and Fogelman in a joint statement.

The network has entered into an agreement to launch by January 2014.

“El Mariachi” & “Stand and Deliver” Added to National Film Registry’s Preservation List

Robert Rodriguez and Ramón Menéndez have cemented their status as Latino luminaries in American film history.

The Mexican-American Rodriguez’s El Mariachi and the Cuban-born Menéndez’s Stand and Deliver have been selected as this year’s additions to the National Film Registry of films for preservation by the Library of Congress for “their enduring significance to American Culture.”

El Mariachi Poster

El Mariachi (1992): Directed, edited, co-produced and written in a short two weeks by then-film student Rodriguez for only $7,000, El Mariachi became an insta-hit on the film festival circuit. After being picked up for distribution, the film helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s. El Mariachi is an energetic, highly entertaining tale of an itinerant musician who arrives at a Mexican border town during a drug war and is mistaken for a hit man who recently escaped from prison. The story, as film historian Charles Ramirez Berg has suggested, plays with expectations common to two popular exploitation genres—the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns. Rodriguez’s success derived from invigorating these genres with creative variants despite the constraints of a shoestring budget. Rodriguez has gone on to become, in Berg’s estimation, “arguably the most successful Latino director ever to work in Hollywood.”

Stand and Deliver Poster

Stand and Deliver (1988): Based on a true story, Stand and Deliver stars Edward James Olmos in an Oscar-nominated performance as crusading educator Jaime Escalante. A math teacher in East Los Angeles, Escalante inspired his underprivileged students to undertake an intensive program in calculus, achieve high test scores and improve their sense of self-worth. Co-produced by Olmos and directed by Menéndez, Stand and Deliver became one of the most popular of a new wave of narrative feature films produced in the 1980s by Latino filmmakers. The film celebrates in a direct, approachable, and impactful way, values of self-betterment through hard work and power through knowledge. Menéndez’s first feature film won six IFP Spirit Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

In all, 25 movies were selected from a lost of more than 2,200 titles nominated this year, including Fake Fruit Factory (1986), a documentary that takes an expressive, sympathetic look at the everyday lives of young Mexican women who create ornamental paper maché fruits and vegetables.