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Patricia Cardoso (Director)
A Fulbright Scholar and winner of a student Academy Award® for The Water Carrier, Patricia Cardoso came to the U. S. from her native Colombia in 1987. The child of two architects, she had already earned a degree in archaeology and anthropology but felt creatively stifled. "I wrote my dissertation in red ink because it expressed my frustration," she recalls.
Nonetheless, as an archaeologist, Cardoso made her mark. She discovered the oldest C-14 date for the Tairona Culture and published in academic journals. She also taught at Universidad Javeriana and was an assistant director at the Colombian Institute of Culture.
While Cardoso was growing up, filmmaking did not exist as a career possibility in her country. However, she created her own 'cinema' with cardboard boxes, toothpicks and a roll of paper with drawings she had made. She used the Fulbright - the first ever awarded for film study to a Colombian - to attend UCLA, graduating with an MFA in 1994.
Uncommonly resourceful, Cardoso found interesting jobs during her starving-student years. She worked at Sundance for five years, starting in 1991 as an intern and becoming its Director of Latin American Programs. She was also a research assistant for documentary Oscar® winners Terry Sanders and Freida Lee Mock.
Cardoso's short story, "Big Blue Bus," won the Santa Monica Bus 70th year Anniversary Writing Contest. As a result her photo and story were posted inside city buses for one year.
She has written four feature-length screenplays: Jose Gregorio, developed at the Sundance Filmmakers and Screenwriters Lab, concerns a Venezuelan doctor in the process of becoming a saint, and has been optioned by Open City Films for her to direct. Milky Way Dream Land was commissioned by the now-defunct French company, Ciby 2000. Cardoso also participated in the IFP/West Screenwriters Lab with Alien of Extraordinary Abilities and invited to Cinemart with the project, Little Saints.
Cardoso's work, including her 12-minute short, "The Air Globes," has been widely screened at international film festivals and aired on public television. She has received funding from the Hubert Bals Fund in Holland, the Toronto Film Festival and the MacArthur Foundation.
Cardoso lives in Los Angeles with her husband, an elementary school teacher. They are expecting their first child in December.
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