LIZ CARDENAS
| Producer, Writer, Director, Actor | BTTL Board Secretary
LIZ CARDENAS is an award-winning producer, writer, director and actor. Nominated for the Producer Award at the 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards, she was a 2022 Indie Spirit Award Winner for Best First Feature for 7 DAYS (Tribeca 2021 | Cinedigm), which she produced for Duplass Brothers Productions. Written and directed by Roshan Sethi, the film stars Karan Soni and Geraldine Viswanathan. She was also nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2019 Indie Spirits for Augustine Frizzell's NEVER GOIN’ BACK (Sundance 2018 | A24) starring Maia Mitchell, Camila Morrone and Kyle Mooney, which she produced with Sailor Bear.
A former reporter for The Dallas Morning News, Liz was selected by The Gotham to participate in the 2023 Cannes Producers Network at the Marche du Film at the Festival de Cannes, was one of four producers to receive the inaugural 2022 Dear Producer Award + Grant, and was included in the 2019 LATINXT, a highly curated list of emerging Latinx creators from an initiative by Zoe Saldana, Robert Rodriguez, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. She’s also a Rotterdam Lab and Film Independent Fellow.
Other notable producing credits include Alex Lehmann's ACIDIMAN (Tribeca 2022 | Brainstorm Media) starring Academy Award nominated actor Thomas Haden Church and Dianna Agron; MATERNA (Utopia), which took home Best Cinematography and Best Actress awards at Tribeca 2020; JULES OF LIGHT & DARK (Wolfe Releasing), the 2019 Outfest Best US Narrative Feature winner; and David Lowery's A GHOST STORY (Sundance 2017 | A24) starring Academy Award Winner Casey Affleck and Nominee Rooney Mara.
Liz has written and directed two award-winning short films and co-created a series of successful live-action children's films, ADVENTURES OF BAILEY, sold worldwide. Under her Ten to the Six Pictures, she has two features and one documentary in post-production and six features in various stages of development – one of which she wrote (an Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition semi-finalist), one she’s set to direct, and one based off the 2023 Oscar-qualifying Indigenous short film, BURROS, she produced and Eva Longoria Executive Produced. She also has a series in development about a Latino trans teen in Texas inspired by one of her short films, IMAGO, which she’s collaborating with 2023 Sundance Jury Award Winner Lio Mehiel (MUTT).
Liz is based in Los Angeles and Dallas, where she grew up with her Hispanic father who immigrated to the US from Mexico City and Irish-American mother from the East Coast.