NALIP member Maria Corina Ramirez’s staring and co-writing in web series “Grown”

NALIP Members Maria Corina Ramirez’s Staring and Co-Writing in Web Series “Grown” | Raymond A. Villareal to Release His New Book "A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING"

Posted by NALIP on May 31, 2018

NALIP member Maria Corina Ramirez’s staring and co-writing in web series “Grown”

Venezuelan born, American raised actress Maria Corina Ramirez earned her B.F.A in Acting from New World School of the Arts. Shortly upon graduating, she took on several leading and supporting roles in theatres all across Miami in both English and Spanish. She has starred in two NBC-Telemundo TV series, two Cine Latino films and over a dozen national campaigns and commercials.

Combining her classical training with her voice as a young Latina, she is constantly creating original content for the stage, film, television and new media platforms. Her original work has been seen in Miami, Los Angeles, New York, the Cannes Film Festival 2012 "Shorts Corner" and the 2015 American Black Film Festival, among others. Her original one-woman, Supa’Nova, won artist residencies for both Miami Theatre Center and the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival in L.A. She has most recently co-written and co-starred on Complex Networks’ first ever scripted series, Grown. The show was a 2015 Project Greenlight Digital winner and is now available for binging con Complex.com. When Ramirez is not acting or writing, she is doing yoga, making her family laugh, traveling or attempting to save the world one political debate at a time.

Insecure tackled Los Angeles. Atlanta tackled, well, Atlanta. Brown Girls tackled Chicago. It was only a matter of time before a mostly black-ensemble set in Miami made its way to our screens. Enter: Grown. Created by Joshua Jean-Baptiste and Edson Jean, who’d first developed the project as a short web series (it’s now a 22-minute-long, eight episode show on Complex), Grown follows two Haitian-American guys who, when brought together, will have to learn and grow together. With both creators also in front of the camera, this contemporary show hopes to tackle issues of identity in a heretofore under-explored enclave of the Florida city.

Joining Jean-Baptiste and Jean in the writer’s room was Venezuelan-American Maria Corina Ramirez. And, just as her co-writers, you can also spot her on the show. She plays Robin, Josh’s best friend and the voice of reason that helps balance out Wes’s more problematic (and promiscuous) ways. As the actress-writer told Remezcla, “What’s beautiful about this relationship is that it is a microcosm of the bond that Latinos and Haitians (and Black Americans) have in Miami.” With all eight episodes now available to stream, this may well be your next binge-worthy addiction. Take a look at the full trailer below and see why Josh thinks his life goes from being a box to a circle (or a spiral, if you trust Robin instead).

Grown is now streaming over at Complex.

Read more at Remezcla.com

https://youtu.be/7OYjjSgYHVA

Raymond A. Villareal is a practicing attorney in San Antonio, Texas. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and the University of Texas School of Law. His first novel, A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising will be published on June 5, 2018. Film rights have been optioned by 20th Century Fox and 21 Laps Entertainment.

This debut novel by attorney Villareal has already been the subject of a six-figure bidding war for film rights—not a surprise, considering that this horror epic takes roughly the same approach to bloodsuckers Max Brooks applied to zombies in World War Z (2006). It starts when CDC virologist Lauren Scott is summoned to Nogales, Arizona, to examine the dead body of a girl named Liza Sole. The soon-undead victim quickly decides to split, but not before Scott gets a sense of her: “Temptation in human form.” Scott quickly finds that her discovery, Nogales organic blood illness, or NOBI, does indeed grant its victims fangs, an aversion to the sun, and a life span up to 300 years. As the NOBI infection spreads, these vampires, now identifying as “Gloamings,” start to aggressively demand equal rights, despite the growing tide of bloodless bodies in the street. The risky process of making a vampire by passing on the virus is dubbed “re-creation” and attracts enthusiasts from Taylor Swift to the pope. Villareal handles his sexy vampires well, giving them interesting abilities and aspects without granting immortality. Elsewhere, the book follows Hugo Zumthor, the FBI agent in charge of the Gloaming Crimes Unit; a radicalized anti-Gloaming Catholic sect; and Joseph Barrera, a slick political operative whose life is upended when he joins the campaign of the first Gloaming candidate for governor. Some of the story’s elements (read: religious conspiracy) may seem derivative, but overall it offers a wide-ranging, readable thrill ride for fans of the genre. While the book fails to match the sociopolitical insights of World War Z, it delivers a spectacularly creepy ecosphere, not to mention some genuinely horrifying frights. Interstitial elements like magazine articles and social media posts help augment Villareal’s ambitious worldbuilding.