The 1960s. María Margarita is the youngest of four siblings in a family that lives in a mining town in the Atacama desert (Chile). The most special time in the week is Sunday, when everyone goes to the movies to enjoy stories that transport them to other worlds. The girl’s parents soon realize that their little daughter has a very special gift, an uncanny ability to tell movie stories. The girl’s talent spreads across the town and changes the family’s fortune just as the country is being transformed forever.
She was born in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1959. In 1984 she graduated in Film Directing from Denmark’s National Film School and made her directorial debut with ‘The Birthday Trip’ (1990), selected for the Panorama section of the Berlin Festival. With ‘Italian for Beginners’ she achieved international recognition and awards like the Jury Prize in Berlin and the Golden Spike, the Best Actor Award (for Peter Gantzler) and the Youth Award in Valladolid. Two years later, she again participated in Seminci with ‘Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself’, which won the best actor award for Jamie Sives, and in 2009 she received three Oscar nominations for ‘An Education’, including one for best film. Since then she has directed films like ‘One Day’ (2011), ‘The Riot Club’ (2014), ‘Their Finest’ (2017) and ‘The Kindness of Strangers’ (2019), which opened that year’s Berlinale.