DANIEL CARDENAS
Daniel Cardenas was born in Santiago, Chile but grew up in Miami. He went to New York to attend Cooper Union for art. After graduation he worked for the directors collaborative Panoptic doing design and animation. One of his animations Sloth got picked up by Ben Karlins company superego to be turned into a web series (slothvision.com). After finishing the six episode run he got the opportunity to make a short film he wrote, Xemoland, with a grant from the Borscht Film Festival and the Miami World Cinema Center, which will be presented on Saturday 7:00pm - at the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Downtown Miami.
What is Xemoland about?
Xemoland is based on a true story that happened between me and my brothers when we where kids. My older brother David and his friend convinced me that there was alternate dimension that would fulfill all my young fantasies ( a lot of which included hover boards)but instead of taking me there they torment me playing off my fear of atomic holocaustI acquired while watching Terminator 2.
Favorite films?
Top three are
Grand Prix, John Frankenheimers 60's formula one movie. The story is a bit soap opera, but the racing footage he shot on 70mm is some of the best racing footage shot to this day. And Francois Hardy is in it looking fantastic in the hey day of her hotness. I'm a huge racing and film fan so this movie brings those things together ( honorable mention, LeMans with Steve McQueen).
The Holy Mountain by Alexandro Jodorowski, This film is a psychedelic masterpiece from the 70's that would be hard to describe. Basically if you haven't seen this film go find it and watch itand then report back on your trip.
Brazil, By Terry Gilliam The inventiveness, humor and creativity that went into this movie astound me every time I watch it. No film captures the absurdity of civilization in such a distinctly unique way.
Favorite directors?
On the animated side I'd say Satoshi Kon, Hayao Miyazaki and Brad Bird are some of the best that have ever done it.
Coen Brothers, Woody Allen, Jean Luc Godard, Hitchcock have always been inspirations, but that's like saying your favorite band is the Beatles. Im an unabashed Wes Anderson fan, everyone loves to hate on him, but I don't care I'm a fanI think he's one of the best of this generation. Every time I'm sick in bed I watch Rushmore it makes me feel better.
Plans after Xemoland?
After Xemoland I'm going to hang out for Art Basel where I have some drawings in the Miami New Thinkers show. Then I'm moving to Los Angeles to work on an animated pilot, and I think right now that's the most information I can give about that. But yeah I'm giving the west coast a shot, looking forward to buying a 1967 BMW 2002 and hitting up the Los Angeles gun club.
What would be a dream project for you?
I have an animated sci-fi racing show that I need to convince someone at a TV network wont be anything like the Speed Racer movie. I really want to combine my two loves of racing and animation into a show that pushes the medium into some new territory. I also have a feature I've been working on about rival artists in a crumbling metropolis that I would love to do at some point.
Favorite websites?
It's hard to not look at digg or reddit every five minutes. I follow jamesallenonF1.com for his great formula one commentary.
Boing Boing, drawn.ca, cartoonbrew.com, and lineboil.com always have good new stuff. although Amid from cartoon brew can be kind of an animation snob sometimes. and adultswim.com and hulu for TV, I love 30 Rock. I wish Tina Fey could be my girlfriend, Tracy Morgan my best friend and Alec Baldwin my boss.
Anything else ‘ like to share with our audience?
Alain Prost, the famous French Formula One driver said, when I look like I'm going fast, I'm actually going slow because I'm not in control, when I look like I'm going slow, I'm actually going fast because I'm in control. I don't know what that has to do with movies but I think it's a cool quote.
