How watching Maria Full of Grace awakened a CEO’s interest in other cultures and the ethics of supply chains
- Watching the Spanish-language film about a Colombian women who ends up a drug mule had a big effect on Marianne Hughes when she watched it as a teenager
- She set up Kno Global, a Hong Kong company that allows businesses and brands to track the well-being of factory workers
Maria Full of Grace (2004), directed by Joshua Marston and starring Catalina Sandino Moreno, whose performance won her an Oscar nomination, tells the story of a young Colombian woman working in sweatshop conditions who, having become pregnant, becomes a drug mule out of desperation.
Marianne Hughes, the British founder and CEO of Kno Global, a Hong Kong-based company that allows consumers and brands to track the well-being of factory workers, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.
I watched the film when I was about 16 or 17. I came across it in Spanish class at school; I had to watch it for an assignment. We could choose from a range of films; I was the only one who chose this one.
The title stood out for me. “Maria” is like the Spanish version of my name, and I wondered what it was that made this girl full of grace. That was my favourite part of the film: after all the trauma and abuse she went through, she was still full of grace.
The film really gripped me. But it was very graphic; I didn’t like all the blood. I ended up watching it with my dad, who came in while it was on and said, “Why are they making you watch this?”
I’m always attracted to stories of people who’ve had a rough experience and really grown from it. I couldn’t believe someone else lived like that. It was a girl of a similar age to me. I thought, “Wow, I could have been in the same situation, caught up in all this.”