LA NINA SANTA
by Lucrecia Martel, Fiction, 110', 2003, 35mm, ARGENTINA/ITALY/SPAIN
With Carlos Belloso, Mercedes Morán, Alejandro Urdapilleta, Maria Alche,
Julieta Zylberberg

It is winter in the Cienaga. After the choral, the girls get together in the church to speak about their faith and their vocation. Amalia and Josefina are 16-year-old teenagers. Whispering, they evoke another subject: French kissing. Josefina comes from a provincial traditionalist family. Not far from where she lives is the old hotel Termas that belongs to Amalia’s family. Amalia lives there with her attractive single mother, and they are currently having many guests over for a science committee. Among the guests is Doctor Jano, a reserved and mysterious middle-aged man. Amalia and Josefina are rapidly relinquishing their grip on childhood innocence, and Jano looks set to lose everything that he has in both his professional and personal life.

LUCRECIA MARTEL
Born in 1966 in Salta (Argentina), Lucrecia Martel studied at Avellaneda Experimental (AVEX) and then attended the National Experimentation Filmmaking School (ENERC) in Buenos Aires. Coming from the new wave of Argentinean scenario writers, she directs several short films, before La Cienaga (2001) received several international awards. Her second feature film The Holy Girl was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.