The Work That Made Me: Alex Fischman Cárdenas
Born and raised in Lima, Perú, Alex Fischman Cárdenas is a short-form filmmaker passionate about telling unheard, intimate, and honest stories. At 17, he directed the award-winning short film 'La Vieja Quinta.' After graduating from NYU in 2020, Alex continued to direct short films (Alienación, Ovejas y Lobos), documentaries (Teeth, Starr), and directorial work for T-Mobile, Adidas, Waze, Uber, and UN. In 2022, Alex signed with Greenpoint Pictures for US representation for commercials and branded content.
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Alex> I’m going to say Finding Nemo. I remember seeing it in theatres and then, so many times at home. The opening scene is so traumatising and powerful, and the film that follows is so precise and impeccable in its storytelling.
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Alex> Surprisingly, there isn't a specific ad, music video, feature film, or television that got me in. It was a combination of skate videos, Call of Duty, and the early 2010's YouTube filmmaking community.
One summer, my friends decided to stop playing soccer and start skating. I became worried. I didn't have the balance, coordination, or courage to step on the board. So, in an attempt to cling to my friend group, I decided to film them instead with my 2007 Sony Ericsson phone that could record video. I learned how to shoot and edit on that "dumb" phone. It couldn't shoot beyond 280p and could edit only 30 clips at a time, but it was enough to get me started. I remember showing those first videos to my friends and family. It was one of the first times in my life I actually felt good at something...
Over the summer, I upgraded to my Mom's Handycam and emulated what other videographers did in the Lima skate community, which itself emulated what the US skate community was doing. We taped empty toilet paper rolls in front of the lens to get the fish-eye distorted frame, and we would run around embracing the messy aesthetic of skate videos.
Then, just like how my friends suddenly started skating, they suddenly stopped. With nothing to film, I stopped too, and dedicated my days to playing video games. I would spend all my weekends locked in a room with my friends, playing the multiplayer mode of Call of Duty Modern Warfare. During one of those binges, I found a video called The Rocket Jump, where a nerdy soldier uses a rocket-launcher to vault over a wall. It changed my life.
The video came from Freddie Wong (now RocketJump), who, along with channels like CorridorDigital and FilmRiot (to name a few), did live-action skits based on videogames and then did tutorials explaining how they made explosions, gunshots, and blood all in CGI. I became obsessed with trying to make action scenes resembling Call of Duty's visuals. But looking back, this experience was like a Trojan Horse in learning filmmaking. In learning to make VFX action scenes, I also learned the basics of film grammar and how to tell a story with a camera.
Eventually, I stopped doing VFX-driven short films, mainly because I wasn't good at the minutia and attention to detail required to make CGI look good. But the film grammar I learned during this time stuck with me, which led me to my first professional project.
My first professional project…
Alex> When I was 17, I worked on the project that started my career.
I couldn't stop thinking about this short story by Julio Ramón Ribeyro called 'Tristes Querellas en una Vieja Quinta.' It was a story we read in middle school, and I loved it. It's funny, heartbreaking, and has so much foul language. So, I decided to adapt the story into a short film. When I reached out to the author's son through the publishing company, he was gracious enough to give me the rights. I then found a young producer who got the legendary Peruvian actor Enrique Victoria to read the script, and he signed on.
The film, 'La Vieja Quinta,' is still one of my proudest achievements as a director. Ribeyro's story has so much heart, the acting is rock-solid, and the technical team went above and beyond to make our environments look beautiful. I remember getting home after wrapping, and I cried because I felt so happy I could bring to life something that had been in my head for so long.
The creative work that I keep revisiting…
Alex> 'Y Tu Mamá También' by Alfonso Cuarón. It directly influenced my 'oners' in early narrative projects and the lighting and camera movement in recent short documentaries. This film inspires me so much because of how sincere and honest each scene feels. It may be a cliché to say, but each time I watch it, I uncover new details, such as gestures and background elements, that heighten the reality of the story.
The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Alex> The only thing I've vowed never to do is anything that doesn't excite me. Whenever I take on a project -- be it a narrative, doc, commercial, or music video -- it has to be something that feels interesting in some new way.
The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Alex> There are so many... But if I had to name a culprit, it would probably be Niclas Larsson. I admire his work because he's making mini-movies for the ad world in a way that feels beautiful, creative, and filled with genuine emotion. His Volvo 'The Parents' ad and Whatsapp 'One' are some of the best ads I've ever seen.
The creative project that changed my career…
Alex> The project that changed my career trajectory was the short doc 'Teeth.' After graduating from college, I was very determined to go into a full narrative career path, but because of the pandemic, we couldn't afford to do a traditional narrative production.
So, we started looking at real stories in New York that we could film with a minimal crew. After doing some random searches of people to profile, we found Teeth, and after my first interview with him, my creative approach shifted. I was not writing his story. I was letting him tell it. The camera work and scenes we chose to film were about showing the myth Teeth presented to the world, as well as the person behind the curtain.
Because we had VO, our visual approach could be more abstract, concise, and energetic. And this style lends itself to the commercial world. 'Teeth,' to me, is a combination of narrative storytelling with the expressionistic and fast-paced style of the commercial world.
The work that I'm proudest of…
Alex> I'm really proud of 'Starr.' It's a short documentary I co-directed with Bertram as a follow-up to 'Teeth.' I love how the film constantly recontextualises who Starr is and how, like in 'Teeth,' we're giving her the microphone to let her tell her story.
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Alex> I recently returned to Peru to shoot two projects that I'm incredibly excited about. The first is a narrative short film set during the era of armed conflict. It's a dark and emotional piece centred around a mother looking for her disappeared son.
While there, we also shot this run and gun short-doc for an athletic apparel brand about a long-distance runner who I love. The production team was DP Jesse Bronstein, myself, and a taxi driver we hired at the airport. When we got there, we didn't know what the story would end up being or what scenes we would be filming, so we just followed the family and shot like five hours of footage. With our incredible editor Ben Schwaeber we narrowed down our scenes and made this tight, minute-long spot that I'm incredibly proud of. I wish I could say more but it isn’t out yet!
