Unknown to the traffickers, Maria witnesses them carrying Lucy out of the hotel room, and she sees blood stains in the bathtub.

[3] He first attempted to write a script about the drug war, but decided to abandon a more polemical, broader approach in favor of a more personal one.

[4][5] For research, he interviewed prisoners, flower plantation workers in Colombia, U.S. Customs inspectors, and Colombian immigrants living in Queens, New York.

[3][5] When Marston showed his finished script to potential producers, they resisted his decision to shoot the film in Spanish and suggested big-name actresses like Penélope Cruz or Jennifer Lopez for Maria.

I didn’t want to tell the story from the point of view of the cop, or the DEA agent, or the drug lord.

[3] Filming was planned to take place in Colombia, but was prevented due to several bombings prior to the country’s 2002 presidential election.

[3] Venezuela was considered as an alternate option until an attempted coup d’état erupted, so filming eventually took place in the Ecuadorian village of Amaguaña.

Then we would open the script and reread what I had written, turn to a blank page, pass a pen around in a circle and rewrite the scene together.

"[4] In the film, Sandino Moreno swallowed real pellets, though they were not latex and contained an easily digestible sugar-like substance.

[11] Maria Full of Grace was first shown on 18 January 2004 at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States.

The website's critical consensus states, "In a striking debut, Moreno carries the movie and puts a human face on the drug trade".

[12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

[13] According to Desson Thomson from The Washington Post, "Catalina Sandino Moreno is a Colombian Mona Lisa, a delicate, unforgettable force majeure.

Also like Loach, he shows us how evil things happen because of economic systems, not because villains gnash their teeth and hog the screen.

Hollywood simplifies the world for moviegoers by pretending evil is generated by individuals, not institutions; kill the bad guy, and the problem is solved.