Colombian Film Shows the Other Side of Drugs
The average American mainly associates Colombia with three concepts: drugs, leftist guerrillas and right-wing
paramilitaries. This flawed assumption has been reinforced by years of military and financial aid from the US government
aimed at curtailing imports of Colombian cocaine. American writer-director Joshua Marston challenges these
preconceptions in his first feature film, Maria Full of Grace.
Marston puts a human face on the drug-trade as he chronicles the story of Maria, a 17-year-old Colombian girl who quits
her low-paying job cutting flowers in the outskirts of Bogata to smuggle cocaine into the United States as a drug
‘mule.’Her quest for monetary gain, however, is complicated on her arrival in New York City, as she struggles to come to
terms with the brutal underworld reality of drug-smuggling. Provocative, yet often charming, Maria Full of Grace
recounts a strikingly personal tale of the drug trade and highlights the plight of impoverished Colombians who easily
fall prey to exploitation by Colombia’s organized crime rings.
A thought-provoking and must-see film for enthusiasts of Latin American affairs, Maria Full of Grace advances a
necessary discussion of the plight of innocents caught up on all sides of the drug-trade. Last year, U.S. Customs
detained 145 drug mules attempting to smuggle cocaine into this country from Colombia, representing only a small
fraction of those who successfully make it into the country. Drawn from all age-groups and sectors of society, the
common element uniting these hapless drug carriers is their desperation to escape the poverty cycle that afflicts both
their communities and their personal lives. Through his film, Marston highlights the social facets of an issue that
affects Colombia’s impoverished majority, stressing the need to better address the humanitarian causes, not solely the
violent consequences, of the drug-trade.
The first Spanish language film to win the Audience Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Maria Full of Grace went
on to win further international acclaim on the festival circuit. It also was well received in Colombia, winning five
awards at this year’s Cartagena Film Festival including Best Colombian Film -- despite the fact that it was produced
largely in Ecuador by an American director. More importantly, the film has changed a number of traditional perspectives
on this inherently divisive and often over-simplified issue through its human portrayal of those caught up in Colombia’s
vicious drug-trade.
Maria Full of Grace will be released in theaters on July 16 in New York and Los Angeles, and on July 30 in Washington,
D.C., Miami, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Minneapolis, San Diego, Denver, Portland, Atlanta, Dallas, and
Houston.
This review was prepared by Kirstin Kramer and Mark Scott, COHA Research Associates