Ligiah Villalobos

Ligiah Villalobos was born to Efrain Villalobos and Olivia Rojas, in Chihuahua, Mexico and immigrated to the United States of America during her childhood. While she was born in Chihuahua, Villalobos states that she was raised in Mexico City. She moved to the United States at the age of eleven.[6]

Villalobos has produced many films and TV shows. Her most notable works include Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), being the Head Writer for the children's Nickelodeon show “Go, Diego! Go!”, and the NBC TV series, “Ed”.[1] She “has developed projects for multiple studios and networks, including NBC, ABC/Family, FX, Showtime, BET, and HBO”. Additionally, “Villalobos has consulted on two Pixar movies, "Planes," and the Day of the Dead project, "Coco," as well as the Sprout TV series "Nina's World." Some additional components of Villalobos’ career history include being “a studio executive at The Walt Disney Company, where she oversaw all television production in Latin America for five years”. Here, she launched “eight children shows in seven countries” and later on oversaw the Writing Fellowship Program and the Director's Training Program for a year. At The Warner Bros TV Network, Villalobos served as a Current Programming Executive, “where she oversaw six prime times shows, including the four highest rated shows on the network”.[2] Most recently, Villalobos has been credited with writing “the Hallmark Hall of Fame/ABC TV movie Firelight, produced by Alicia Keys"[7] and Mary Martin. She has also written a pilot for NBC titled ‘Loteria’,[4] a pilot for Starz based on the NY Times best seller "The Dirty Girls Social Club",[5] as well as an animated feature film called "Chito and the Land of Xo" that is currently being developed.[8] Additionally, she has recently co-written the Lifetime TV movie "The Real MVP", which was produced by Queen Latifah and Shelby Stone.[1]

Ligiah is on the board of the Writers Guild Foundation and on the board of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. She won a Humanitas Prize in 2013 for Firelight.[3] Additionally, she graduated with her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch University in September 2013 and also received her MFA in Creative Writing from the same institution in May 2016. Though she never received her degree, Ligiah also studied at Brigham Young University for four years.[9]

As its Writer and Executive Producer, Under the Same Moon is Villalobos’ most well known work. This film was an “Official Selection at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and became the highest sale for a Spanish-language film in the history of Sundance”.[2] As noted in a video interview with the National Hispanic Media Coalition, she originally wrote the film 7 years prior to its execution because she wanted to make the career transition from producer to writer. As a child immigrant from Mexico herself, Ligiah's inspiration for this film came not from wanting to create another ‘crossing the border story’ but one “about the displacement of children as a result of parents coming to live in this country”. She wanted to place a focus on the abandonment of children, as this is a theme that resonated in her own childhood due to the divorce of her parents.[7] Villalobos wrote this film out of a desire to show the world the reality of life as an immigrant, and drew much of the story from her own life experiences. She notes in another interview that the hardest and most emotional scene to write was about the main character, Carlitos, waiting to be picked up by his father. She says that it was “the hardest scene to write because it touched on some experiences that I went through with my own father”.[10]

Before this film went into production, Villalobos had to re-purchase the rights to it from the original producers, since her script had been with them for five years. After struggling with two production companies, the team for this movie decided to make it an independent film and raised the necessary funds within a month. After getting into Sundance, the film sold for five million, making it the “highest sale for a Spanish language film in the history of Sundance”.[7]

Many critics feel as though it is a “warm drama that humanizes Americas current illegal immigration debate even as it sentimentally stacks the deck in favor of the undocumented”.[11] Critics feel as though this film relies heavily on sentiment, and therefore it “blunts the hard edges of immigration with a thick coating of preciousness”.[12] However, this film and its emotional appeal clearly resonate with its viewers, as it received a standing ovation at Sundance.[11]