My Movie Collection

Maria Full of Grace (2004, Spanish title: María llena eres de gracia, lit. "Maria, you are full of grace") is a joint Colombian-American film, written and directed by Joshua Marston, who won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. Although the movie depicts rural life in Colombia, it was actually filmed in Ecuador. The title is a double-entendre alluded to on the poster—a simultaneous reference to the Hail Mary and to what Maria carries in her into the United States.

Lead actress Catalina Sandino Moreno was named Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in the 77th Academy Awards. She is one of three Hispanic actresses to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, together with Mexican actress Salma Hayek for Frida (2002) and Spanish actress Penelope Cruz for Volver (2006).

María Álvarez is a 17-year-old Colombian girl (played by Catalina Sandino Moreno), works in sweat shop-like conditions at a flower plantation to help support her family. However, after finding herself pregnant by a boyfriend whom she does not love, forced to bring in the money for her unemployed sister (a single mother) and being unjustly treated by her boss, she quits and decides to find another job, despite her family's vehement disapproval. On her way to Bogotá to find a new job, she is offered a position as a mule — one who smuggles drugs by swallowing drug-filled pellets. Desperate, she accepts the risky offer, swallows 62 wrapped pellets of heroin and flies to New York City. After a close call at the US Customs (she was about to be X-rayed, until customs found out she was pregnant), she is set free and sent to a hotel where she is to remove the pellets from her body. The traffickers arrive to take the drugs. To retrieve the pellets from Lucy, a fellow mule who died when one of them ruptured inside of her, the traffickers cut open her stomach, then disposed of her body. After seeing this ruthless world firsthand, Maria decides to escape the drug-trafficking cartel.