 Cardoso was the first Latinx woman to win a Sundance Film Festival Dramatic Audience Award and to receive a Student Academy Award.Cardoso attributes her anthropological background to the respect she has for every character in her films, the depth and dimension of her character development, and for the rigorous research she does during pre-production to create reality and truthfulness in her movies.Cardoso's "Real Women Have Curves" broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking and became a landmark in American independent film.