Blue Ant Studios sets first-look development, production deal with Lisa Cortés

Blue Ant Studios, the production division of Canada-based Blue Ant Media, has inked a first-look deal with producer and director Lisa Cortés and her production banner Cortés.

Lisa Cortés

Under the pact, Cortés will collaborate with Blue Ant Studios to develop and produce scripted and unscripted titles across documentary, music, history and biography and narrative.

Several projects are already in development, including a docuseries based on Clover Hope’s acclaimed book The Motherlode: The 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop.

Cortés and Blue Ant Studios are also working on a pair of scripted dramas: No Retreat, about black and indigenous women soldiers in Europe during the Second World War, and Little Apple, a sci-fi dramedy created by Riley S Wilson about a young girl in Harlem who happens to be a superhero.

Earlier in her career, Cortés was a music executive at Def Jam and Rush Artist Management, as well as VP of artist and repertoire at Mercury Records.

Outside of the Blue Ant Studios deal, Cortés is directing the forthcoming documentaries Little Richard: I Am Everything and The Empire of Ebony. Her other recent credits include Amazon Studios’ All In: The Fight for Democracy and Emmy-winning HBO doc The Apollo.