“Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four” director Deborah S. Esquenazi “is set to demystify stories and myths about women of color and LGBTQ individuals with her newly launched production company Myth of Monsters,” Deadline reports. Among the projects on the production banner’s docket is a TV adaptation of her Emmy-nominated true crime doc, which she’s working on alongside “Mad Men” alumnus Jason Grote.
After making its world premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, “Southwest” went on to screen at fests such as Hot Docs and the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam. The Peabody winner tells the story of four Latina lesbians who were wrongfully convicted of gang-raping two little girls in San Antonio.
Before the film’s release, Esquenazi told Women and Hollywood that the doc “is fast-paced with several plot twists.” And while “a lot unfolds in this emotional film,” she emphasized that she hopes viewers “will catch some of the underlying mythologies and intersectional themes that play out underneath it all, particularly in the way in which the women were portrayed by overzealous prosecutors and how they were represented during a cultural hysteria — the Satanic sexual abuse panic of the ’80s and ’90s.”
“Southwest of Salem” eventually helped exonerate the so-called San Antonio Four. Nearly 20 years after being wrongfully convicted for a crime they didn’t commit, Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh, and Anna Vasquez were declared innocent.
Myth of Monsters is also developing a bilingual coming-of-age LGBTQ drama with producers Cathleen Sutherland (“Boyhood”) and Susan Kirr (“I Love Dick”) on board. Set in 1989, “Queen of Wands” takes place “during a fictionalized hurricane at the height of the AIDS crisis in Texas.” The story is semi-autobiographical and inspired by Esquenazi’s experiences growing up “a young lesbian in a Cuban-Sephardic household.” “Queen of Wands” will be Esquenazi’s first feature-length screenplay, and she’ll also direct.
The banner is also planning to adapt “Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages,” a 1922 documentary-style horror pic which appears in “Southwest of Salem.” The film was banned in the U.S. due to scenes of torture and nudity. Its themes of witchcraft and Satanism also likely played a part in its censoring.
“As a filmmaker, I am committed to using media to reveal societal inequities, rally support for important causes, and create probing, powerful cinema,” Esquenazi has said. Her other credits include the 2009 feature doc “Isaiah’s Children” and the 2014 doc short “The Kellers.”
