LARGetc. is bolstered by Lisa Garibay’s years of experience empowering nonprofits and entertainment entities ranging from Film Independent, and the Spirit Awards to the Los Angeles Film Festival and NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives), for which she increased membership, revenue and visibility. Lisa uses this range of experience to lead LARGetc. in successfully strategizing publicity, connectivity and brand identity for creative businesses, impassioned entrepreneurs, individual artists, and nonprofits seeking to keep up with the ever-changing global climate.
Lisa’s years as a journalist have resulted in strong contacts with media, publicists, managers, artists and celebrities worldwide plus expertise in researching, pitching and editing press releases and feature stories. She has written for Back Stage, Dazed & Confused magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, and many others. She is the founder of ThenItMustBeTrue.com, an alternative outlet for artists and journalists to have intelligent discussions about their work, including filmmakers Pedro Almódovar, Michel Gondry, Walter Salles and Lars von Trier as well as musicians Gustavo Santaolalla, Phil Selway (Radiohead), Peter Murphy, Dave Navarro, and many others. For this, she was awarded an Arts Writing Fellowship from the prestigious Sundance Institute.
As a filmmaker, Lisa has spearheaded innovative outreach campaigns for independent cinema, garnering awards as well as loyal audiences around the world. She has produced award-winning films including Robbing Peter, which premiered at the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards; the groundbreaking graffiti documentary Bomb It by acclaimed experimental filmmaker Jon Reiss; and Anayansi Prado’s Children in No Man’s Land, which tackles the issue of undocumented children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone.
As a music supervisor, Lisa secured the first-ever original film score by legendary rocker Alejandro Escovedo for Robbing Peter and amassed a collection of seminal rock-en-Español artists for the soundtrack to East Side Story. As a screenwriter, her feature script All For One was selected to participate in the first-ever NALIP/New York Latino Film Festival Latino Writers Lab, where it secured representation by major talent agency International Creative Management (ICM). Lisa’s film career began at Woods Entertainment under producers Cary Woods and Cathy Konrad (Kids, Cop Land and Scream). She then served as production assistant with Jim Brooks’ Gracie Films for Bottle Rocket and Jerry Maguire.
Lisa worked with Film Independent for more than a decade, overseeing corporate marketing, fundraising, programming and publicity for the world’s largest independent film organization and its two high-profile annual events: the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Independent Spirit Awards. She also managed Film Independent’s Project:Involve minority mentorship program to increase diversity within the film industry.
In 2002, Lisa joined with her brother (a musician/sound engineer) and sister (a professional photographer/social justice advocate) to create LARGetc. in order to provide effective grassroots marketing, publicity and creative business strategy for independent artists, companies and nonprofits spanning the globe. In 2008, she brought LARGetc. to El Paso, Texas, launching the LARGep division to help artists and businesses in the world’s largest border community achieve their full potential.
LARGetc. clients have included 20th Century Fox, the Academy Awards, the American Music Awards, musician/performer Joshua Bradford, Columbia Pictures, Gagen MacDonald, the Golden Globes, the Grammy Awards, special effects whiz Aaron Sims (Green Lantern, War of the Worlds), and Warner Bros. Studios. LARGep clients include Cinco Puntos Press, City of El Paso Downtown Revitalization Plan, Cottonwood Technology Fund, El Paso Bar Association, El Paso Opera, PDN Capital, Plaza Classic Film Festival, Rio Grande Cancer Foundation, and Borderzine (a trailblazing online outlet aiming to increase diversity within newsrooms across the country).
Lisa’s nonprofit experience includes convention and tourism coordination with the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and marketing management for NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives), overseeing online and print communications for the industry’s largest nonprofit association of TV industry pros.
In 2004, Lisa partnered with noted film consultant Peter Broderick to create Films To See Before You Vote, using films as tools to inform, inspire and organize voters and pioneering new means of utilizing the Internet for crowdsourcing towards greater funding, distribution and activism opportunities. She is the founder of CineMás, a nonprofit initiative linking film with education and community development among Latino populations, and co-founder of The Impacto Project, which teaches indigenous youth to use photography and video for cultural preservation and economic growth. She also serves as managing editor of El Paso Entrepreneur Network, cultivating funding & partnership opportunities for small businesses.
Lisa was born and raised in El Paso, Texas and attended Amherst College in Massachusetts. She proudly owes her vocation to a healthy obsession with The Beatles and A Hard Day’s Night.