Patricia Cardoso

Patricia Cardoso is a director, writer, and producer. Cardoso's feature film "Real Women Have Curves" was a box office and critical success and has become a landmark of Latino cinema. 
Cardoso is a graduate of UCLA's film school, an anthropologist, and a Fulbright scholar; her anthropological approach to directing guides her film and television work. 
Cardoso was the first Hispanic woman director to receive a Sundance Audience Award and a Student Academy Award®. 
Episodic directing work includes Netflix's "The Society" and "Tales of the City", "All Rise", "Emergence", "Party of Five", and "Diary of a Future President".
In 2017, Cardoso was invited to join the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in the Directors Branch. 
In 2018, Ava DuVernay tapped her to direct an episode of her acclaimed television series "Queen Sugar".
In 2019, her film "Real Women Have Curves" was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry "as a cinematic treasure and worthy of preservation as part of America’s patrimony".
Early life.
As a child Cardoso wrote and illustrated home-made picture-books. Only when she became a film student at UCLA she realized these books were story boards. Cardoso's first film was a humorous documentary titled "Vacas Flacas y Vacas Gordas" (Skinny Cows and Fat Cows) about the famine and feast periods her family endured. Due to the lack of technology in her household the film was made with toothpicks, paper, and cardboard.
She studied anthropology at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
Career.
At UCLA film school she was at the top of her class earning all major directing awards at the school: the Colin Higgins Foundation Award in Film, the Lynn Weston Fellowship in Film, and the Verna Fields Award. 
Cardoso’s directing credits include episodes of "The Society", "All Rise", and "Tales of the City" and the feature"Teresa" —the largest box office for a woman director in Colombia.
Cardoso was the first Latinx woman to win a Sundance Film Festival Dramatic Audience Award and to receive a Student Academy Award. 
Cardoso attributes her anthropological background to the respect she has for every character in her films, the depth and dimension of her character development, and for the rigorous research she does during pre-production to create reality and truthfulness in her movies.
Cardoso's "Real Women Have Curves" broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking and became a landmark in American independent film. According to "Entertainment Weekly", it is "one of the most influential movies of the 2000s," and cast "a wide shadow over the new generation of filmmakers to come." The movie is cited for showing "the impact a movie could have in the culture," and it is acclaimed for its nuanced portrayal of its characters and of Los Angeles.
Filmography.
El Regalo.
Written and produced by Dago García and directed by Cardoso, the film stars Cesar Mora, Ella Becerra, Javier Ramirez and Margalida Castro.
The Toymaker.
Directed and produced by Cardoso the documentary film is about Horst Damme, a blind German toymaker, who has lived in Bogotá since 1936 when he arrived with his family as refugees from Nazi-Germany.
La Clave.
Directed by Cardoso and written by Josefina Lopez the short film tells the story of a family faced with the mental illness of their daughter. The film stars Mariana Montes, Luis Enrique, and Ivette Gonzales. The film won the First Place Drama Short for the United Latino Film Festival, a Gold CINDY Award, a Robert Townsend Social Issues Award and Merit Special Mention at The Best Shorts Competition.
Meddling Mom.
Directed by Cardoso, written by Nina Weiman and produced by Frank Konigsberg and Patricia Clifford, "Meddling Mom" was the first Latino film ever made by Hallmark Channel. The film stars Sonia Braga, as Carmen Vera, a ceramics art dealer and meddling mother pursued by a charming dance professor played by Tony Plana. The film was nominated to an IMAGEN Award for Sonia Braga's strong performance.
Carmen Vega is guilty of being a meddling mom. Her crimes include slipping into daughter Yolanda's home to leave behind "how-to" books on starting a family and manipulating daughter Ally into a doomed relationship with her best friend Marisol's son Pablo. Now Carmen Vega, notorious mother of good intentions, is about to get a crash course in butting out and maybe she'll even find a romantic life of her own.
The film was shot on location at Jose Vera's Fine Arts and Antiques wonderful store in Eagle Rock.
Ro.
Cardoso directed a six-episode web series for YouTube channel WIGS. Ro, a young woman in parole, played by Melonie Diaz, goes to a speed dating bar trying to rebuild his life after prison. The series was produced by Rodrigo García, John Avnet and Jake Avnet.
The series is written by talented Mattie Brickman and stars along Diaz William Mapother, Jonathan Tucker and Christopher Carley.
Lies in Plain Sight.
Cardoso directed the remake of the Israeli movie "". Written by Teena Booth based on Noa Greenberg's script the film stars Rosie Perez, Martha Higadera, Chad Michael Murray and Benito Martinez. It was produced by Frank Konigsberg and Yan Fisher-Romanovsky for Sony Television and Lifetime.
The story of Eva and her blind cousin Sofia (Martha Higadera), who were inseparable as children, with Eva the loyal companion who helped Sofia through her tough adolescent years. When Eva suddenly commits suicide, Sofia rushes home to her father, Hector (Benito Martinez), and Eva's parents, Marisol (Rosie Perez) and Rafael (Yul Vásquez), to find answers. But the more she delves into Eva's life, questioning her past boyfriend's Ethan (Chad Michael Murray) and Christian (Christoph Sanders), the more Sofia realizes that their childhood was actually filled with dark, disturbing secrets.
The film received a NAMIC Vision Award, an IMAGEN Award for Martha Higadera's performance and was selected as Lifetime Movie of the Year in 2011. It was nominated to an NAACP Image Award for Rosie Perez's performance.
Awards.
Cardoso received: