Margarita Cadenas

Margarita Cadenas (Caracas, Venezuela), is a Venezuelan-French director, producer and screenwriter. Margarita Cadenas was born in Caracas, Venezuela. After earning her diploma in social communication in the Catholic University «Andres Bello” (1977), very young she quickly started her career as a high-level journalist. She became a reporter for Venezuelan television and wrote for several newspapers. Her talent was spotted and she was asked to present the 20: 30 news for national television Canal 8 (1977–1979). She then went on to interview local political players.

She left for Great Britain in 1979 where she specialised in production and directing with the British Council and BBC London. With this experience under her belt, she directed and produced her first work of fiction “Cindy” or a Cinderella turned punk, and a documentary about Venezuela called “Land of Grace”.

She then moved to France in 1982.

Between 1983 and 1986, she was an assistant director at SFP (Societé Française de Production) working with directors like Claude de Givray, Gabriel Axel, Philippe Monnier, Michel Boisrond, Jean-Jacques Goron. After this experience, she co-created her first production company, Alta Mira (1986) They produced shorts films, docs and film ads.

Between 1988 and 1995, she continued her work producing more than 60 Publicity films, shot in South Africa, Argentina, Venezuela, England, Denmark, Spain and France. She worked for various companies like 50/49, Son and Lumière et Movie Box as an executive producer for publicity agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Young & Rubicam, Grey, RSCG, Léo Burnett UK, Mc Cann, and title producer for directors like Peter Suschitzky, Eric de La Hosseraye, Costa Kekemenis, Christine Pascal, Jaime de la Peña and Roch Stefanik.

In 1995, she began to produce works of fiction and created the company MC² PRODUCTIONS. In 1996, TF1 broadcast her first television series., “Barrage sur l’Orenoque” This French-Spanish co-production was followed by “Marie et Tom” a French-Canadian co-production in 2000. Meanwhile, she was developing her first feature projects. With MC² Productions she coproduced with Village Roadshow Productions a film by Tassos Boulmetis entitled “A touch of spice” (2003). She produced for the French Television "Chuao, la vallée merveilleuse" (2006) by H. Becerra and G. Jacquemin.

Her career as an auteur also got started when co-wrote her first television series "Barrage sur L’Orénoque” (1996) and as director with the documentary “Au-delà des apparences" on the controversial anthropologist Jacques Lizot which she also wrote and produced.

She went back to her native country in 2007 and started to publish articles and pictures in her page History and Voyages in the Daily “El Expreso”.

Writer, Producer and Director of the short films “Mascaras” (2009) featured in the Cines Unidos Circuit in Venezuela.

Writer, producer and director of the Documentary “Macondo” (2009) : about the living house of Miguel Otero Silva, a famous writer, poet, and owner of the daily journal “El Nacional”, an icon of journalism in Venezuela and Maria Teresa Castillo, a fighter for women’s rights.

After an expedition to the Amazon that she organised for a book to be published on the mythology of the Yanomami Indians, she wrote the long feature film “Cenizas Eternas” which she has also produced and directed (2011). Theatrical release in Cines Unidos in all cities of Venezuela on 9 December 2011 to 23 March 2012.

Audience Award II Dones i Cinema Art Festival, Valencia, Spain 2012

Price Best Sound Track at XXVII Latin American Festival Trieste, Italy 2012

Nominated in the Competition World's Best First Film of the Official Selection of the XXXV World Film Festival in Montreal, Canada 2011

Official Selection at the Festival Les Reflets du Cinema Iberian Villeurbanne, France 2012

Nominated Best Film in National Competition at the Festival de Cine Venezolano in Mérida, Venezuela 2012

Presented at the Festival of Films Present, Martigny, Switzerland 2012

Biennale of Contemporary Art Marcigny, France 2012