Participant Media Lands the Rights to Luna’s Cesar Chavez Biopic

It looks like Diego Luna’s biopic on Latino labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez will be making its way to theaters in North America…

Diego Luna

Participant Media has landed all North American rights to Chavez, which is being directed by the 32-year-old Mexican actor.

Based on a script by Hotel Rwanda scribe Keir Pearson, the film stars Michael Peña as the highly celebrated Mexican American labor organizer.

Cesar Chavez

The biopic focuses on Chavez’s work organizing the largest non-violent protest in U.S. history to aid more than 50,000 farm workers in California.

Luna’s Canana Films is producing the biopic, currently filming in Sonora, Mexico, and co-starring America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson, Wes Bentley, Michael Cudlitz and Gabriel Mann.

Chavez Biopic

Canana principals Pablo Cruz, Gael Garcia Bernal (who makes a cameo appearance in the film) and Luna are producing with John Malkovich (who stars as Bogdanovich, one of Chavez’s key adversaries.

Hayek to Bring “The Prophet” to the Big Screen

Salma Hayek isn’t exactly a prophet… But she is a successful film and television producer… And, now she’s set her sights on the nearly 90-year-old defining work of the most widely read poet in history.

The 45-year-old Mexican actress has partnered with the Doha Film Institute and Participant Media to adapt Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Khalil Gibran’s classic novel The Prophet into an animated film.

Salma Hayek

Translated into well over 40 languages, the book of 26 poetic essays is divided into chapters dealing with the human themes of love, marriage, children, joy and sorrow, crime and punishment, freedom, friendship, good and evil, prayer, religion and death – amongst others.

The Prophet has been an incredible source of wisdom and inspiration for millions of people all over the world,” said Hayek. “Being of Lebanese descent, I’m particularly proud to be part of a project that will present this masterpiece to new generations, in a way never seen before.”

Each of the classic tome’s chapters will be directed by a different award-winning filmmaker, with Oscar-nominated Lion King director Roger Allers coordinating the entire process.

Pre-production will begin later this month with Hayek producing, alongside Clark Peterson and Ron Senkowski.  

“It’s a passion project for everyone involved, led by Salma’s determination to create a truly collaborative artistic approach to this universally loved novel,” said the Doha Film Institutes executive director Amanda Palmer