Lucrecia Martel (born December 14, 1966 in Salta, Argentina) is a film director, screenplay writer, and producer.
According to film critic Joel Poblete, who writes for Mabuse, a cinema magazine, Lucrecia Martel is one of the members of the so-called "New Argentina Cinema" which began c. 1998.
Martel studied at Avellaneda Experimental (AVEX) and then attended the National Experimentation Filmmaking School (ENERC) in Buenos Aires.
Yet, because one of the film schools she attended closed for lack of funds, she maintains she was self-taught. Martel said, "I watched movies, I read books, I wrote. I was a free mind, because I had to be."
She directed a number of short films between 1988 and 1994. The award winning short film Rey Muerto (Dead King) (1995) was part of Historias Breves I (Brief Tales I).
Her debut film La CiƩnaga received several international awards, and The Holy Girl was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.
She was a member of the Cannes Film Festival Feature Films Jury in 2006.