Netflix is working up a scripted series about Mexican artist and cultural icon Frida Kahlo and her husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera. The streamer said the drama will show how the couple’s love, betrayals and artistic work were shaped by the political and social atmosphere of the time.
Patricia Riggen and Gabriel Ripstein will share directing duties. Mónica Lozano of Alebrije Producciones is producing.
The series will be an adaptation of French novelist Claire Berest’s book about Kahlo, which traced her story and that of her relationship with Rivera. María Renée Prudencio will be head writer on the streaming series, which does not yet have a name.
Timelines are not yet clear with Netflix announcing the project today and simply stating it is in development. The topline shared with media about the show reads: “It tells the story of a woman who refuses to be only a muse and decides to tell her own version of pain, and of a man who tries to sustain his creative genius despite his contradictions—showing how their relationship became a driving force, a battlefield, and a public spectacle.
“The series is the story of a bomb wrapped in silk; a bomb that is the two of them, that is Mexico, and that is, inevitably, the entire world.”
Speaking about the series, Carolina Leconte, VP of Content for Mexico at Netflix said: “It’s a daring proposal that takes us into the most intimate spaces of two figures we feel have been exhausted by myth, but whose true story we have not yet dared to face directly.”
