Sofia Garza-Barba

Sofia Garza-Barba is a bilingual Mexican-American director who's work has been described as fantastic and whimsical, yet with hints of darkness. She was born and raised in Monterrey Mexico, where the sun and heat forced her imagination to evaporate in to a magical realism state. A dreamer from a very young age, she spun tales of magical worlds throughout her childhood. Sofia's unique sensibilities in film were further refined at Brooks Institute of Photography, and in screenwriting at the New York Film Academy. After directing a music video for the Grammy Award winner Kinky as her thesis project at Brooks, she attracted and worked with some of the biggest band names in Latin America like Natalia Lafourcade, Porter, Moderatto, Aleks Syntek and Timbiriche. Soon after she created commercials and branded content for Carls Jr, Shari's Berries, Pocky, Indio Beer, Coppel, and others. Although Sofia still enjoys crafting videos and commercials, she is currently focusing on Film and TV. In 2018, she got the opportunity to write and direct her first horror short for CryptTV, Cakeman. The camp horror short got over 3 million views, provoking fans all over the world to film their reactions while watching it. Directing short films encouraged Sofia to continue the path of telling narrative stories with a unique POV. She enjoys making people laugh, cry, scream or feel butterflies in their stomachs. Her work has been awarded or shown on festivals like Malibu International Film Festival, Festival de Cannes, Tribeca , San Diego Film Festival, Morbido and One Screen. Her experimental short "Count me in", was one of the selected stop motion pieces chosen by director Michel Gondry to be included in the Mexican DVD version for his film The Science of Sleep. She was a 2018 mentee at Ryan Murphy's Half Initiative program shadowing for an episode on American Horror Story, and a 2019 Fellow Director of the DGA's Commercial Directors Diversity Program where she was paired to direct a Spec Spot for Toyota alongside Hungry Man as a mentor company, and Saatchi & Saatchi. In 2018 and 2019, two of her vertical films were selected by Nespresso Talents USA and screened at Tribeca. She currently works both in the U.S. and Mexico and is making her way to directing her first feature.