Los Angeles, CA —  Award-winning filmmaker Patricia Cardoso will be the guest speaker during the first day of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s (UCLA TFT) two-day virtual Orientation, on Tuesday, Sept. 29. She will welcome students to a new academic year and accept the Distinguished Alumna Award. 

“We are extremely happy to welcome Patricia Cardoso back to campus virtually to receive our Distinguished Alumna Award and to be our special guest speaker,” says UCLA TFT Interim Dean Brian Kite. “Her groundbreaking films, including Real Women Have Curves, have no doubt served as inspiration for so many of our students and I know they will be excited to hear and learn about her filmmaking journey.”    

“I am honored to receive the UCLA TFT Distinguished Alumna Award and thrilled to share my experiences with the students,” Cardoso says. “I knew nothing about filmmaking before I stepped into campus and didn’t speak much English, but despite this, at UCLA, I learned my craft, found my voice as a storyteller and developed lifelong friendships.” 

Cardoso’s 2002 film Real Women Have Curves was a critical and box-office success. In 2019, the film, which has become a landmark of Latino cinema, was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, making Cardoso the first Latina director to have that honor. She was also the first Latina director to win a Sundance Audience Award and a Student Academy Award. A Fulbright scholar, anthropologist and 1994 graduate of UCLA TFT, her student films The Air Globes and The Water Carrier won several awards and played at festivals around the world; her anthropological approach to directing continues to guide her film and television work. Cardoso’s directing credits include episodes of The Society, Queen Sugar and Tales of the City, and the feature El Paseo de Teresa, a film that has the distinction of earning the highest box-office revenue for a female director in Colombia.  

In addition to her work as a filmmaker, Cardoso is currently a professor at UC Riverside and previously taught at UCLA and USC. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America. 

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