‘Vida’ Development Alum Bianca Quesada Inks First-Look Deal With Telemundo for Tplus

When Telemundo comes to her mind, the first thing Bianca Quesada thinks about is her grandma’s television set and seeing telenovelas with the same soapy narratives that have been told by the genre for ages. Fast-forward to today, and the “Vida” development alum will be producing unscripted and scripted content for Telemundo that will expand the aperture of the medium, redefining what a telenovela can be.

“We both fundamentally believe that the Latinx experience is not monolithic and that it is not a one-size-fits-all narrative. We want to bridge the nuance and reliability of characters and move from just a Latin or a Hispanic experience to a universal human experience,” Quesada tells Variety. “Hollywood has been a perpetrator of regurgitation of negative stereotypes about our people, and to a degree, there weren’t enough of us to hold the people in storytelling accountable for the types of depictions,” she added. Quesada is hoping that, through her exclusive first-look deal with NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, she can be one of many to develop content that is both forward-thinking and authentic.

Quesada’s production banner, Arcus Studios, is dedicated to “expanding the aperture of the Latina)e)o)x narrative.” The multi-year deal Quesada has inked will, specifically, lead to the creation of programming in both English and Spanish for Telemundo’s new content brand on Peacock, Tplus. Quesada is primarily known for her work on the development team for Starz’s “Vida,” and her other TV credits include being the co-executive producer for the ABC Signature series, “Off the Rims,” and an executive producer for the HBO Max series “Whistleblower.”

Through the first-look deal with Telemundo, Quesada is hoping that she and her company can produce programming that tackles machismo culture and colorism, among other prejudices, within the broader Latinx community. “I had been talking for a really long time with Tplus and Telemundo about this, and about how their space within the film and TV medium can examine and excavate these themes within different genres through different worlds and characters,” she continued.

The topics of sexuality, gentrification, ethnicity and the “Latina gaze” were handled deftly in Starz’s “Vida,” which earned a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding comedy series and a National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Award for outstanding television series in 2019. “Vida” spanned three seasons and starred Melissa Barrera, Mishel Prada, Ser Anzoategui, Chelsea Rendon, Carlos Miranda, Maria-Elena Laas and Roberta Colindrez. It was inspired by the short story (“Pour Vida”) by Richard Villegas Jr. and was created by showrunner Tanya Selene-Saracho.

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