Maria Full of Grace: Columbian Drug Trade?

Question

I watched Maria Full of Grace and I have to answer how accurate the film is. What are some good resources to determine whether or not the movie is accurate. I'm not asking for someone to give me the answers, I just want resources to find out more about it.

Answer 1

GREAT movie!  We watched this in my sociology of gender class.  I'm going to do a search and see what I can come up with.  You have access to a library right?

Drug smugglers on drug smuggling : lessons from the inside / Scott H. Decker and Margaret Townsend Chapman. (2008)

The international drugs trade / Guy Arnold. (2005)

Illicit trafficking : a reference handbook / Robert J. Kelly (2005)

Illicit : how smugglers, traffickers, and copycats are hijacking the global economy / Moises Naim. (2005)

Political economy of illegal drugs / Pierre Kopp. (2004)

La guerra de las drogas : cultivos ilicitos y desarrollo alternativo / Iban de Rementeria. (2001) ---If you speak spanish this would probably be good. It was put out by the Colombian government.

Drug trafficking / Julia Bauder, book ed. (2008)

Drug politics : dirty money and democracies / by David C. Jordan. (1999) ---has a chapter on Colombia

Unintended consequences : illegal drugs and drug policies in nine countries / LaMond Tullis. (1995)

Drug wars and coffeehouses : the political economy of the international drug trade / David R. Mares. (2006)

In case you can't get to a library:

http://philonfilm.blogspot.com/2005_03_0...

http://www.filmfodder.com/movies/reviews...

http://www.colombialink.com/01_INDEX/ind... (this has an interview with the actress, probably useful!)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5050399/ **LOOKS GOOD!!!

http://www.mariafullofgrace.com/ (go to the "interviews" menu at the top)

Interesting stuff:

    *

    * Although the first part of the film is set in Colombia, it was actually filmed in Ecuador.

    * Catalina Sandino Moreno did not practice swallowing pellets during rehearsals. Since the character of Maria did not know how to swallow them, Moreno and Joshua Marston agreed that it would be more realistic for her to try swallowing them for the first time on-camera. The pellets were made of easily digestible substances but neither Moreno nor Marston will reveal what exactly they were made of.

    * Catalina Sandino Moreno prepared for her role by working in a Colombian flower plantation for two weeks cutting roses. She did not meet with real drug mules because she wanted to appear to be as clueless to the process and the consequences as Maria was.