Venezuelan director Fina Torres has a reputation for stylish, intelligent movies with a strong feminist twist. Her debut ­ 1985's French-produced Oriane, which took the Camera d'Or at that year's Cannes ­ was a powerful film about a couple's memory-drenched visit to a Venezuelan estate. More recently, 1994's Celestial Clockwork, starring Spain's Ariadna Gil, was about a young Venezuelan who leaves her boyfriend at the altar and flies to Paris with the idea of being an opera singer.

"Women have to find a way of uniting work, love and other people's expectations of them without it ending in disaster," says Torres. This signals the central theme of Woman On Top, which once again displays her comic talents. As before, the starting point is the heroine deciding to leave home: Isabella (Penelope Cruz) moves
from Brazil to the States after the breakdown of her marriage to Toninho (Murilo Benìcio). In San Francisco, she pursues dreams of becoming a chef and, in the company of her childhood friend, occasional transvestite Monica (Harold Perrineau Jr), becomes a culinary celebrity. But fame doesn't solve her problems: in fact, its added pressures make her new life more complicated. But Torres gives the film a strong spiritual dimension, offset by bold slapstick and dry verbal comedy. "The film was a unique chance to show the power and joy of Latin American culture," explains Torres.

It was also a chance to show what leading lady Cruz can really do. As predicted for years, her Stateside star is rising as fast as her level of spoken English. "She has something of Audrey Hepburn about her," says Torres, "mixed with the sensual quality we associate with Latina women." Torres is not the only one to notice it; after featuring in Stephen Frears' Hi-Lo Country, she caught America's attention as the strongest nominee for Most Memorable Scream And Leap at this year's Oscars when presenting Best Foreign Film to Almodòvar ("Pedroooooo!"), who directed her in All About My Mother.

She's about to be seen opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bobs, but in the meantime Woman On Top is a defining moment in her career. It is her first leading role in a US-funded film, and her character is more than a sexy Latino object of male desire ­ a desire Torres in fact satirises throughout the film.