Latinx-Focused Production Company Launched by ‘Selena: The Series’ Creator

“Selena the Series”Creator Moisés Zamora has teamed up with Bianca Quesada and business partner Ellen Gorra to launch Zone One Productions. With multiple projects in the works already, this is a major step forward for Latinx representation in a space that has been plagued with inaction by major studios and producers despite report after report of underrepresentation.

Luz Collective asked Moisés Zamora and Bianca Quesada over a phone interview what they hope Zone One production will accomplish for the Latinx community. Quesada says she hopes “they find themselves thinking and looking at themselves and their families in a new way, [because]…what has been out there, hasn’t been a critical, in-depth view.”

Zone One Productions was launched to highlight the stories and successes of Latinx, Indigenous, and Afro-Latinx people. With diversity and inclusiveness at its core, projects that authentically represent the full spectrum of the Latinx community are expected.

Zamora says he wants to create “opportunities for creators and performers to show up authentically with universal compelling storytelling.” Zamora recognizes the richness and diversity of Latinx culture and hopes to tell stories within different genres from the Latinx perspective. “We are opening the Latin identity to all sorts of genres and that gives us an exciting new palette.”

The tone with which both Quesada and Zamora are approaching their production company is from the lens that Latinx stories are universal and that they can be relatable to anyone in the world. “We hope others are able to see themselves in our work and give breath to a huge group of people that have been ignored or tell stories in a different way that have not been told.” says Quesada.

According to a recent release, some of their in-progress work includes an upcoming HBOMax series entitled “The Whistleblower”, focused on attorney Natalie Khawam as she delves into the dangerous culture of sexual harassment, rape, and more in Fort Hood. Khawam explores deep into this topic while investigating the case of Vanessa Guillen, a Fort Hood soldier who went missing and was later found to have been killed by another soldier she had accused of sexual harassment.

Their major film currently in development is “To Die Sane”, the story of a Mexican-American agent for ICE who slowly begins unraveling after one of the detainees at his detention center commits suicide. Myth and horror meet in this movie as other agents of ICE are killed by El Cuco, the boogeyman of many of our Latinx childhoods.

“Off the Rims” tops off Zone One’s projects, as this series in development explains the story of two Atlanta-based Afro-Latinx friends who try to make it to the big time. In order to make their dreams come true, this “Fast and the Furious meets Atlanta” inspired drama has this pair join one of the most advanced car theft rings and a life of crime.

According to their website, “Zone One embraces its intersectionality through its founders who are majority women, and majority gay. We are the X in Latinx. Zone One’s mission is to develop and produce TV and film content with cultural specificity, universally-compelling characters, and commercial global appeal about people of Latin-American, Indigenous and Afro-Latin descent.”