Under the pact, Forestieri’s first overall agreement, she will be developing scripted series across cable and streaming in both comedy and drama under her newly launched Mamalu Productions banner.

Forestieri wrote the pilot for Gordita Chronicles and serves as an executive producer on the period comedy, which debuted June 23 to strong reviews. Fellow Gordita Chronicles executive producers Brigitte Munoz-Liebowitz, who serves as showrunner, and Josh Berman, also are under overall deals at Sony Pictures TV.

Forestieri first met Munoz-Liebowitz while both participated in NBC’s Writers on the Verge program in 2013. Forestieri, who also is an alumna of the ABC Disney and HBOAccess writing programs, landed her first staff writing job on Freeform’s Good Trouble in 2018. She went on to work as an Executive Story Editor on the first season of Netflix’s Selena: The Series and was promoted to Co-Producer for the second season.

Forestieri conceived Gordita Chronicles in 2016-2017 as a one-hour drama inspired by her experience of immigrating with her family from the Dominican Republic to Miami in the 1980s when she was 7. She planned to use the script as a writing sample in her efforts to get staffed on a show for the first time. Sony TV executive Frank Ochoa suggested that she turn it into a half-hour comedy, and the project was put into development at the studio with Munoz-Liebowitz on board.

“Claudia’s deep skills, passionate voice, collaborative nature and lived experience are everything we look for in a writer”, said Glenn Adilman, EVP of Comedy Development for SPT. “We are so proud of Gordita Chronicles and know there is much more greatness where that came from.”

Graduating from the University of Florida, Forestieri knew she wanted to be a TV writer but didn’t know how to become one. She decided to follow the career path of one of her role models, Oprah Winfrey, who had started in news. Forestieri served as a reporter and producer for Telemundo stations in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami and earned five local Emmys and a GLAAD Media Award for her work covering the Latino community before she segued to TV writing.

“I’m ecstatic to have the chance to deepen my relationship with the folks at Sony, the studio behind so many groundbreaking hits,” Forestieri said. “They’re committed to telling bold  stories and I consider myself extremely fortunate to call SPT home.”

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Credit: Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, July 28th 2022