Maria Gabriela Cardenas is a director, producer, and writer. Her directorial debut "A Dark Foe", a psychological thriller garnered twenty awards and sixteen nominations and was distributed by Vertical Entertainment. Cardenas has done a variety of music videos, and short films, including the award-winning short "The Grand Guignol" (2015).

She has worked with talented artists, such as Academy Award nominee Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves, The Green Mile), Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions, Hellboy), Bill Bellamy (How to Be A Player), Glenn Morshower (24, Transformers: Dark of The Moon), Beverly Todd (Crash, The Bucket List), Jon Lindstrom (General Hospital, True Detective), Sound Designer Paul Ratazjack ( The Fighter, A Haunted House), Composer Tim Jones (Chuck, Thor: Ragnarok) and Special Makeup and Prosthetic Effects Vincent J. Guastini (Requiem for A Dream, The Last of The Mohicans).

As a devoted fan of the film noir and thriller genres, Cardenas, along with her father, Oscar Cardenas, established a film production company, Path of Thorns Entertainment (TM).

Maria Gabriela Cardenas has two other films in development: The Man With the Lion Face and The Bus.