Hollywood siren Eva Mendes is making headlines these days as a single mom in a new film titled Girl in Progress. Grace, played by Mendes, is a single mom who’s too busy with her own life to pay attention to her tween daughter Ansiedad (Cierra Ramirez). This forces Ansiedad to grow up too fast. Influenced by coming-of-age stories on her reading list in her English class, Ansiedad decides to bypass the very necessary stage of adolescence. She gets a head start on life with the help of best friend, Tavita (Raini Rodriguez) while her mom’s focused on juggling bills, work and the married Dr. Harford (Matthew Modine) and her flirtatious co-worker (Eugenio Derbez).
Mendes and Ramirez participated in a recent charity screening with Step Up Women’s Network, a nonprofit membership organization igniting women and girls to fulfill their potential, empowering teen girls from under-resourced communities to be confident, college-bound, and career-ready, and propel professional women through connections, collaborations, and continuous development. They stayed for a Q-and-A following the screening providing the girls and their moms an opportunity to discuss the film and share their personal experiences and connection to the characters they played. –yvette caslin
