David Farnor | On 25, Feb 2021

America Ferrera is heading to Netflix to make her directorial debut with I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

The Anonymous Content and MACRO produced feature film is based on Erika L Sánchez’s bestselling novel of the same name.

A National Book Award finalist in 2017 and winner of the 2018 Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a poignant, laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home. The story follows Julia Reyes, the precocious and strong-willed teenaged daughter of first-generation Mexican immigrants. She often clashes with her more traditional parents, who wish she were more like her sister Olga, the platonic ideal of a Mexican daughter. However, when Olga is killed in a tragic accident, it is up to Julia to hold her family together.

Linda Yvette Chávez is adapting the film, with Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Superstore, Real Women Have Curves) stepping behind the camera and up to the helm.

Ferrera says: “Years ago, I fell in love with Erika L Sánchez’s stunning novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. 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. I am truly honored and humbled to direct Linda Yvette Chávez’s beautifully adapted screenplay. The opportunity to direct the work of these two incredibly talented Latina writers is a dream come true. I can’t wait to share this film with the many fans of the novel, and to introduce this funny, profound, and resonant story to the world.”

Anonymous Content optioned the rights to the book under the company’s first-look deal with Aevitas Creative Management. Anonymous Content’s Doreen Wilcox Little, MACRO’s Charles D King and Poppy Hanks, and Aevitas Creative Management’s David Kuhn will produce, with Aevitas’s Michelle Brower and MACRO’s Greta Fuentes on board as exec-producers and Sánchez serving as co-producer.

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