How the ‘Real Women Have Curves’ director continues to school Hollywood

Throughout her career, award-winning director Patricia Cardoso has frequently been the only woman in the room, the only person of color, the only immigrant. She’s broken barriers in the film industry and has become a role model for females in not just filmmaking, but also body confidence and sexuality, as is skillfully displayed in “Real Women Have Curves.” For that 2002 film, Cardoso became the first Hispanic female director to receive a Sundance Audience Award.

But she really lights up when she starts talking about her obvious passion for teaching — specifically being a professor in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production at the University of California, Riverside.

“I’ve been teaching almost all my life, it’s something that I really love to do,” Cordosa said. “But by far my favorite place ever is UCR. I’m in love with UCR.”

What’s your favorite part about teaching at UCR?

The community, the students, the faculty, the staff. It’s very different from other schools I’ve worked with. There’s so much support for each other and respect.

The students are just so unique, and they have so many good stories to tell. So many of them have gone through hardships to go to school. We get a lot of transfer students, and their outlook is different; they are so positive. There is also so much inclusivity and diversity among the student body that is nothing like what I’ve experienced.

If you could pick out something specific, what would you hope your students get out of your teaching?

Confidence. Confidence in their self-worth, and to really know they are valuable and capable of anything.

Confidence is something I’ve struggled with all my life, and I know that’s been a big obstacle for so many — especially women, people of color, immigrants, people with disadvantages. We struggle with confidence. That’s something I see my students struggling with, so I’m always just pushing confidence, confidence, confidence.

There are a lot of other things. In the film industry, everything changes so fast, so just to keep a love of learning. I take classes at my local community college. I learn from my students too. Then there are soft skills like collaboration, communication and listening.

Are there any parallels between teaching and directing?

There are a lot of them. Listening is so important. When I’m teaching, I have to listen to the students. Most of my career I taught without a textbook, and only a couple of years ago I started having written assignments, and I found it so useful. The students have to do a weekly written response, and when I read them, I can plan my discussion according to their responses. It helps to know what they liked or didn’t like and how they responded to it. Listening as a director is important too. I have to listen to my actors, my crew.

Also, inspiring other people and giving them space. As a director I see my job as needing to inspire my actors, cinematographer, production designer; I give them the guidance, but then I give them all this space to do their jobs. It’s exactly the same as teaching my students. I inspire them, I give them some guidance, and then I give them the space to do the best job they can. I trust my actors, I trust my crew members, I trust my writers — and with teaching, I trust my students.

How do you feel about being a role model as a female director?

I am very grateful to the many circumstances in my life that have allowed me to be a role model. I’m so happy to be able to inspire other people because I didn’t have role models, I didn’t have women of color professors or filmmakers that inspired me.

I wish I was not a role model because I wish there had been many before me. At the same time, there’s never been a better time in history for women to be alive. There was a study just released about women film directors in the industry; we went from being 4 percent to being 5 percent. And that’s actually huge! It also is still just 5 percent when it should be 50 percent.

The first time I directed for Ava DuVernay, for “Queen Sugar,” she only hired women directors and that was 2018. That was only four years ago but it was the first time in my life I felt like I was not the exception, I was the rule. I felt like I belonged.

Are there more films in your future?

I just directed a pilot for Amazon, but we don’t know if it’s going to pick up or not. It was my first pilot, and it was a wonderful experience. I worked with an amazing writer, Harlan Coben, who wrote the book on which the series is based. He also was the showrunner, creator and co-writer of the pilot. Hopefully we’ll be able to see it sometime in 2022. I also did an episode of an anthology series for Disney+ that just came out. The series is called “Just Beyond.”

For my students, they are just finishing a web series they created last quarter called “Complaints.” The web series was written by UCR grad student Esther Gatica. It has three episodes, and I had three directors, cinematographers and editors, and one showrunner. They’re finishing the editing, and we have a wonderful composer from the music department who’s composing the score for the series. The actors were also acting students, and all the crew positions are my students. Hopefully it will premiere in the next couple of months.

What do you do for fun? 

My biggest passion is nature. I love to go hiking, I love going to the ocean. I love gardening, specifically fruit plants. I grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, and I lived most of my life in apartments. So, when I finally got a house, I went wild. I went to a nursery and bought all the fruit plants I could. In my backyard, I have 35 different ones. I have things growing all the time; it just makes me very happy.