Gina Rodriguez, made famous for her Golden Globe winning portrayal of Jane Villanueva in CW’s Jane the Virgin is starring in a new short film directed by Jason O. Silva called C’est Jane. In C’est Jane, Rodriguez plays a killer-for-hire who battles with her inner morality and her chosen profession.
Silva stated his directorial vision of C’est Jane are, “to take the trope of a dangerous female agent and peel back the elements of convention.” The short film Silva describes as a “character portrait of Jane,” is set behind a “bare backdrop of an industrial environment, giving an impression of a theater stage.”
Silva also hopes to take C’est Jane and create a feature length film of the story. With the first half of the story depicting Jane’s “awakening human side” while working in between jobs. The second half of the film, Silva describes, would feature Jane as an all out killing machine, “where this human side of her is extinguished by the realities of the life she’s chosen.”
The short film itself reads more like a live poem, with Rodriguez reacting to each word before the final line is read and the surprise is reveal. The surprise being that Jane isn’t a normal young woman but an assassin. So it’d be great if C’est Jane did turn into a larger film that gave more insight into Jane the human vs Jane the assassin. Like Columbiana, but better.
Given that it is Hispanic Heritage Month here in America, and Rodriguez herself has often spoken about the importance of different, and positive representations of Latinx peoples in media, this announcement is truly exciting. There’s still a stringent status quo how media portrays latinx people in a larger context, so here’s to hoping Rodriguez and other latinx actors keep getting interesting, and non-stereotypical roles such as C’est Jane.
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