With her award-winning feature-film debut, La Ciénaga (The Swamp) (2001), writer-director Lucrecia Martel emerged as one of the brightest figures of the new Argentinean cinema. In her follow up, the 2004 Cannes Film Festival Competition entry, THE HOLY GIRL (LA NIÑA SANTA), Martel intimately explores the burgeoning sexuality and religious fervor of two teenage girls, Amalia (MARIA ALCHÉ) and her best friend, Josefina (JULIETA ZYLBERBERG). Artfully piecing together a mosaic of nuanced details, fragments of sounds, and small moments, Martel creates a potent and specific portrait of adolescent life.