Aisha Ford is just one of the multi-talented directors screening her film at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.
Starring This Is Us' Eris Baker in the lead role, Ford's live-action short film Cherry Lemonade follows a young girl learning to hold her own in a world that "sometimes contains violent men that may present themselves as protectors."
Ford tells ABC Audio that the film is reflective of her own experience because she "remembers the dangers" of her hometown and the importance of defending herself. She hopes the film serves as a representation of the "community and home [she] remembers in a way that champions its complexity and authenticity."
In other industry news, Robin Thede and London Hughes will lead the upcoming Perfect Strangers reboot on HBO Max, Deadline has learned. The original 1980s sitcom starred Mark Linn-Baker as Midwest native Larry Appleton and Bronson Pinchot as his distant cousin from Europe. In the new version, Thede and Hughes will respectively play Deja and Poppy, two women who discover they are half-sisters when they "both inherit a one-bedroom apartment above a trap yoga studio in Fort Greene, Brooklyn." A release date for the series has yet to be announced.
Finally, fresh off her co-starring role in Warner Bros.' In the Heights, Dascha Polanco has confirmed that she will star opposite Shanola Hampton in the NBC pilot Dangerous Moms. Based on the Spanish series Señoras del (h)Ampa, the show will follow four mothers "who accidentally kill the queen bee of their school's PTA during the demonstration of a new high-end food processor." Polanco will play Pia, the "impeccable nemesis of Monique," portrayed by Hampton. Additional casting has yet to be announced.