For an actress with little training and experience, Catalina Sandino Moreno made a seismic impression with her first feature film role. In “Maria Full of Grace” (2004), Moreno played the title character who, sick of working a slave-wage job as a flower dethorner in a small village outside Bogota, Columbia, becomes a drug mule and smuggles heroin into the United States. Powerful and emotional, “Maria Full of Grace” became a hit on the international festival circuit. So gripping was Moreno’s performance that she shared with Charlize Theron the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 2004 Berlin
Feature acting debut, playing a young girl who consents to transport heroin into the US, in director Joshua Marston's "Maria Full of Grace"; received SAG and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress
2004
Made her New York stage debut in an Off-Off-Broadway staging of Shakespeare's "King John"
2006
Portrayed a Mexican immigrant working in a slaughterhouse in Richard Linklater's "Fast Food Nation"
2007
Co-starred in Ethan Hawke's adaptation of his own novel, "The Hottest State"
2007
Played a supporting role in the Mike Newell adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera"
