|
|
| THIS GIRL'S STORY
maria full of grace
LOOKING TO GET OUT
Catalina Sandino Moreno as Maria
|
JOSHUA MARSTON DIDN’T WANT TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT DRUG MULES; HE WANTED TO MAKE ONE ABOUT A GIRL WHO IS A DRUG MULE. IT’S A CRUCIAL DISTINCTION, EXPLAINS ELEANOR SINGER, AND ONE THAT HAS BROUGHT MARIA FULL OF GRACE ACCLAIM AND AWARDS AROUND THE WORLD.
|
|
The scale of the drugs trade between South America and the United States - the world’s largest consumer of narcotics - is, as the box on page 50 indicates, breathtaking. And the favoured method of importing heroin and cocaine from Columbia - getting so-called ‘mules’ to swallow 100 or more latex-wrapped pellets of the drugs - has become part of the social history of the third world. It is at once a seductive source of income for the mules themselves (one trip can bring between 250% and 400% of a Colombian’s average annual income) and a dangerous undertaking. Even putting aside the possibility of arrest by US Customs and a long jail term, the trade can be lethal: if one of the packages - which are wrapped in up to six layers of latex and tied with dental floss - ruptures, a slow and painful death from drug-poisoning is almost certain.
There are no exact statistics for the number of mules who have died as a result, since many of them go unreported. But Orlando Tobón, a leader of New York’s Colombian community who has worked for 20 years on behalf of drug mules and their families, has shipped over 400 bodies back to Columbia. The age range of the mules, he says, is between 17 and 72.
Tobón recently acted as adviser and associate producer on Maria Full of Grace, a new US-produced, Spanish-language film which focuses on the life of one such mule. Maria won the Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance earlier this year; a Best First Film prize and a Best Actress Award for Catalina Sandino Moreno (who plays the title role) at the Berlin Film Festival; and a slew of prizes at the annual Cartagena Film Festival in Colombia. Tobón became involved after being approached by the film’s writer and director, Joshua Marston, and ended up effectively playing himself - under the character name of Don Fernando.
But Marston, as he made plain to Tobón, did not want to create a docudrama about drug mules, nor even a Traffic-style movie which chronicles various aspects of the narcotics trade: his interest lay in the pressures that drove young women to become mules in the first place, and in the impact this decision had on them and their families.
|
|
|
