The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively reported that Selena Gomez will be starring as the Peruvian mountaineer and social entrepreneur Silvia Vásquez-Lavado in a big-screen biopic about her life. In the Shadow of the Mountain will be based on the upcoming memoir of the same name by Vásquez-Lavado, who not only became the first openly gay woman to complete the Seven Summits – “a challenge to climb the highest mountain on each continent but also became the first Peruvian woman to summit Mt. Everest.”
Scott Budnick’s One Community and Oscar winner Donna Gigliotti and her Tempesta Films banner will be producing the film, while Mayan’s M.C. co-creator Elgin James will write and direct. Gomez is set to produce In the Shadow of the Mountains through her July Moon Productions. Vásquez-Lavado and Lara Love Hardin of Idea Architects will serve as executive producers.
Vásquez-Lavado was a “victim of childhood assault and neglect and found healing and power in mountaineering.” She has made efforts to organize treks to Mt. Everest’s base camp for other women who have endured abuse. Gomez, meanwhile, will be busy over the next year. On top of In the Shadow of the Mountain, she will also be working on season two of Selena + Chef for HBO Max, the Hulu Original series Only Murders in the Building with Steve Martin and Martin Short, and Hotel Transylvania 4, where she will not only lend her voice once again as Mavis but executive producing as well.
Vásquez-Lavado’s memoir, In the Shadow of the Mountains, is scheduled to publish in the winter of 2022. There is no word yet on when the film is set to release.
