María is a 1922 Colombian silent film in black and white, directed by Máximo Calvo Olmedo and Alfredo del Diestro.

While most sources claim that the initiative to produce María came from the Franciscan priest Antonio José Posada, others indicate that the idea came from Alfredo del Diestro.

According to Máximo Calvo, two other actresses, whose names he doesn't recall, also played in María: an Italian, Lucia, as José's wife, and Elvia, from Buga, as Tránsito.In the early 1900s, Colombia's economic boom favored the development of cinema, enabling many films to be imported and several movie theaters to be built, such as Bogotá's Gran Salón Olympia, inaugurated on December 8, 1912.

[15] In fact, their avant-garde attempt to attract audiences with a sensitive topical subject brought regular film production to a screeching halt in the years that followed.

[16] Right from its first edition, the book was a literary success, José Joaquín Ortiz declaring in the newspaper La Caridad, lecturas del hogar that the verses in this volume "were received with rare enthusiasm".

To this end, he went to the director's photography studio and gave him a copy of the novel, telling him: "Read this wonderful book and study the possibility of making a film out of it".

[1] With the financial help of Federico López, a dentist who had returned from Jamaica, where he was Colombian ambassador, and members of the Salcedo family living in Buga, who joined the venture, the Valley Film production company was founded.

[1] Posada also sent money to Calvo for the purchase of equipment, namely 12,000 feet of negatives, 10,000 positives and special paint for the artists' faces and hands.

[19] According to two sources at the time, the idea was the brainchild of Alfredo del Diestro, who approached Francesco Di Domenico with a view to bringing it to fruition, but failed to reach an agreement.

[19] Shortly afterwards, according to Pedro Moreno Garzón, Secretary General of SICLA, the priest Antonio José Posada, then in Cali, had the same idea as Del Diestro and met him in Buga to work together on a film adaptation of Isaacs' novel.

[19] Alfredo del Diestro, who was looking for a director of photography, is said to have tried to secure the services of Vicente Di Domenico, but the latter, who was already busy, recommended Máximo Calvo, with whom he later teamed up to direct María.

[20][21] The latter hypothesis is supported by Esperancita Calvo's testimony in the documentary En busca de María (1985) by Luis Ospina and Jorge Nieto.

[23] Filming began in October 1921,[8][22] at the hacienda El Paraíso, the setting for the plot of Jorge Isaacs' novel,[8] although the interior scenes were shot in the municipality of Buga.

[4] Máximo Calvo used a William and Son camera that Vincenzo Di Domenico had sold him at a good price to thank him for teaching him how to develop film.

[7] Calvo, who had no technical collaborators at his side, developed the film's negatives in a makeshift laboratory set up in the oratory of the El Paraíso hacienda, before making the first three positive prints in Buga.

[7] In a 1960 interview with Hernando Salcedo Silva, Calvo said that shooting María had given him the experience he needed to make a film without the help of "an endless list of technicians".

[2][24] In the latter city, capital of the Valle del Cauca department, the audience was mainly made up of press representatives, "special guests" and the film's actors.

[1] According to an article in the May 24, 1923 edition of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, Eastman Kodak returned color copies to the film's owners.

[30] This was the case, for example, of Juan de Luna of the magazine Cromos, who doubted the quality of the performance of some of the actors, who were novices in the world of cinema at the time.

[1] It was considered a patriotic duty to attend one of María's screenings, and the film began with a depiction of the national flag featuring a portrait of Jorge Isaacs.

[30] While the feature was a success domestically, it was "a disaster" abroad, according to Berta Lorente, daughter of the director of the Valley Film production company.

[27] Four days after the film's premiere, David, the eldest of the children, sent a letter to the editor of the newspaper El Tiempo, Eduardo Santos.

[34] In a resolution dated November 30, 1923, the Ministry of Public Instruction cancelled Valley Film's registration of María in the intellectual property register.

[30] The film production company acknowledged that the rights belonged to the writer's children, Julia, María, David and Clementina Isaacs González.

[35] However, this legal case, won by the Isaacs family, served as additional publicity for the film, which broke attendance records despite an increase in ticket prices.

[22][37] In this film, Ospina is the voice of Alfredo del Diestro, while Carlos Mayolo plays Maximo Calvo, in the re-enacted scenes recounting the making of María.