Gandja Monteiro, who has directed episodes of a number of well-known television series, will soon make her feature film directing debut with “Lucy Picks A Genre.” In September, filming for the film will begin in Nashville, Tennessee. The movie, written by Frederick Seton, centers on a high school senior’s search for her missing younger brother just before a Memorial Day house party starts.
Episodes of AMC’s dystopian series “The Walking Dead: Dead City,” in which Maggie and Negan attempt to save the kidnapped son of the Hilltop leader from a ferocious character known as The Croat, are among Monteiro’s most recent credits. She also directed two episodes of “The Witcher,” a historical drama series on Netflix that followed Geralt of Rivia as he traveled the world as a lone monster hunter, overcoming perilous situations. The director was also a member of the directing crew for Netflix’s fantasy series Wednesday, which follows Wednesday Addams during her college years as she battles psychic abilities, thwarts a murderous rampage, and solves family secrets.
The second and third episodes of “Brand New Cherry Flavor,” which follow Lisa Nova, an aspiring filmmaker in Los Angeles in the 1990s, as she sets out on a surreal quest for vengeance that devolves into mayhem, were directed by Monteiro. Her resume includes a variety of productions, including “The Chi,” which depicts the hopes and hardships of South Side Chicago citizens whose actions every day could mean the difference between life and death.
The Prime Video series “Panic,” which is set in the small Texas town of Carp, where graduating seniors risk their lives in a perilous game for the possibility of winning life-changing money, was produced with Monteiro’s assistance. Among her other directing credits is an episode of ‘In the Dark,’ in which Murphy, a blind and rebellious twentysomething, finds what she takes to be the dead body of her closest friend outside her apartment, sending her into a state of upheaval. “Vida,” one of her previous films, tells the story of two very different sisters who, after their mother dies, return to the area where they grew up, only to discover secrets about both their mother’s past and their own identity.
