Amazon Freevee has secured exclusive US first-run rights to “Casa Grande,” a bilingual limited series that follows the stories of California's hard-working, often undocumented migrant workforce, as well as wealthy northern landowners. California.
Consisting of five one-hour episodes, the series premieres May 1 on Freevee. Lauren Swickard ("A California Christmas") and Ali Afshar created "Casa Grande," which hails from Afshar's ESX Entertainment.
The stars of the series include John Pyper-Ferguson ("The 100," "Suits"), Christina Moore ("That '70s Show," "90210"), Madison Lawlor ("Juniper"), Karen Bethzabe ("Babylon "), Javier Bolaños (“All American”), Raquel DomÃnguez (“Chicago Med”), James Marsters (“Buffy The Vampire Slayer”), Kate Mansi (“Days of Our Lives”), Daniel Edward Mora (“Coco” ), Loren Escandon ("The Baxters") and Ali Afshar ("He Just Doesn't Like You That Much").
Latina filmmaker Gabriela Tagliavini (“Despite Everything”) directed the series; Swickard serves as showrunner and also wrote the series with Alex Ranarivelo and Michael Cruz. Other executive producers include Ava Rettke and Daniel Aspromonte.
This is the debut series from ESX Entertainment, which has mainly focused on Christmas movies such as "A California Christmas", "I Believe in Santa", "Holiday Harmony" and "A Christmas Mystery".
“We modeled ‘Casa Grande’ on a Hispanic-influenced ‘Yellowstone,’ and feel the story will resonate powerfully with audiences who appreciate elevated Western themes and cultures presented through a different prism,” Afshar said in a statement. "Amazon Freevee is the perfect service for the public to discover and enjoy the world of 'Casa Grande,' where the intensity never ceases and the traditional trope of good vs. evil becomes skewed and harder to accept."
The “Big House” tagline describes the series as “a top/bottom story transposed from turn-of-the-century English countryside to rural America. The show uses the framework of conventional character drama to explore universal themes of class, immigration, culture, and family. The big issue is pulling back the curtain on how the machine we all live in works: glittering upper-class culture could not exist without the inflexible and back-breaking work of the socially invisible migrant workforce working behind the scenes. With Clarkman Farm and its neighboring property, Dalton Farm, employing, housing and feeding much of Mendocino County's undocumented immigrants, 'Casa Grande' explores the dramatic truth of our country's appeal to immigrants and what humanity will endure to taste the American Dream.