Join Defense of Democracy founder and Executive Director for a movie showing and discussion.

Film: Expanding Sanctuary
DATE: Saturday June 13
TIME: 7:00 p.m. edt
LOCATION: Beacon Music Factory

Cash bar

(short film: 23min runtime)

Expanding Sanctuary - An immigrant mother emerges as a community leader during the historic campaign to end the sharing of the Philadelphia police database with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Expanding Sanctuary tells a rarely told story about a Latinx immigrant community’s successful journey to change legislation and protect families.

“Expanding Sanctuary” screens on Friday, June 12 at 7 PM.

We will be airing three short documentary films:
Expanding Sanctuary - An immigrant mother emerges as a community leader during the historic campaign to end the sharing of the Philadelphia police database with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Expanding Sanctuary tells a rarely told story about a Latinx immigrant community’s successful journey to change legislation and protect families.

Second responders- Second Responders is a short documentary that explores the emotional aftermath of the 2023 Lewiston, Maine, mass shooting from the perspective of public school teachers. Often overlooked in conversations surrounding tragedy and recovery, educators were forced to become emotional anchors for grieving students while navigating their own fear, trauma, and uncertainty.  

Death by a Thousand Cuts -Death by a Thousand Cuts follows two PhD students, Laura Mata Lopez and Griffin Gowdy, as they deal with the aftermath of the federal government cutting science research funding from the National Institutes of Health, money that funded their own research projects at Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University, respectively

Whether doting, nurturing, or struggling, the maternal figure shapes our world. Motherhood Unscripted explores the compassionate, often quiet sacrifices that define motherhood. This local shorts festival brings together narratives about the bond between parent, child, and community highlighting how care work shapes our collective understanding of humanity.

Join the LHC in a film screening and conversation with documentary film maker Kristal Sotomayor, and film protagonist, organizer and community resident Linda Hernandez.  We will explore ways in which community organizing has changed and evolved in recent years, celebrate and highlight the ways that collective action is personal, and look ahead at opportunities to stand up for ourselves and our neighbors.   This will be a virtual screening and discussion, Thursday, May 7, 2026, 4:00-5:00pm.

“Expanding Sanctuary” screens at University of Illinois’s Social Justice Initiative on Wednesday, May 6, 2026 from 6:00 - 8:30 PM at the Chicago Justice Gallery (1344 S Halsted).

Join Big Picture Alliance for a professional development seminar on film festivals and distribution, focused on how to successfully position and share your film with audiences. Featuring Kristal Sotomayor of Sotomayor Productions, this session will provide a practical, case-study-driven look at building a festival strategy, selecting the right festivals, crafting strong submissions, and navigating the festival circuit.

“Las Cosas Que Brillan” screens at the Capital City Film Festival as part of the ‘Pride in Motion’ Shorts program on Friday, April 17, 2026 at 6:00 PM at Riverwalk Theatre (228 Museum Dr, Lansing, MI 48933).

“Las Cosas Que Brillan” screens at Poppy Jasper International Film Festival on April 14th from 12PM - 2PM at the Morgan Hill Community Playhouse.

“Las Cosas Que Brillan” screens at Maryland Film Festival on Friday, April 10 at 8:00 PM.

Join Voice of Witness for an afternoon celebrating the power of community-centered storytelling.

This two-hour showcase invites you to experience the work of the Storyteller Initiative Fellows, who have spent the past year deepening their craft and advancing projects rooted in justice, memory, and collective action.

Each fellow will be joined by the collaborators who made their work possible, offering a rare opportunity to witness not just the stories themselves, but the relationships and processes that made them possible.

Kristal Sotomayor will present work from their audio documentary project exploring the impact of water privatization on communities across Pennsylvania. Drawing on oral histories from residents, activists, and policymakers, the project weaves investigative journalism with intimate, community-centered storytelling to challenge corporate control over one of our most essential resources.

feini yin will share "In Our Wildest Salmon Dreams," a multimedia project bringing together oral histories and visionary fiction from Salmon Protectors and BIPOC activists working toward fisheries restoration and food sovereignty. Rooted in relationship building and collective dreaming, the project honors the vibrancy and resilience of Salmon cultures while confronting the systems threatening their survival.

Come ready to listen, reflect, and be moved by the stories that remind us why narrative matters in the fight for a more just world!

“Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens” screens at CAMRA Screening Scholarship Media Festival (SSMF): Portals on March 28th from 4-5:15pm as part of the Queer Memory & Urban Genealogies program.

Join us for a film screening & panel discussion of “Expanding Sanctuary”!

Don't Cry For Me All You Drag Queens screens at the 2026 SPE Media Festival from March 20-21, 2026 at the Courtland Grand Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia during the Society for Photographic Education Annual Conference.

“Expanding Sanctuary” screens at Watsonville Film Festival on March 13, 2026, 5:00 - 7:00 PM PDT at CineLux Green Valley Cinema (1125 South Green Valley Road).

“Expanding Sanctuary” screening with Temple University Beasley School of Law on Thursday, March 12th at 12:00 PM.

“Expanding Sanctuary” screens at Duke University’s Trinity Movie Theater for a special presentation with the Duke Beyond Borders student group on February 25th at 6PM.

Join us for a special screening of Expanding Sanctuary, a powerful documentary that follows immigrant families and grassroots organizers in South Philadelphia as they fight to protect their community from detention, deportation, and displacement. Through intimate storytelling and on-the-ground advocacy, the film reveals how local organizing can create real pathways to safety and dignity.

The screening will be followed by a live conversation with the filmmaker, protagonist and Acacia Center for Justice exploring how legal advocacy, community organizing, and storytelling work together to defend immigrant rights.

Donations will be spilt between Acacia Center for Justice and Sotomayor Productions, which is fiscally sponsored by 501(c)(3) nonprofit CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia.

Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens screens at the Lost River Film Fest on Friday, February 6 at 5:15 PM as part of the LGBTQ Shorts block showing at The Price Center (222 W. San Antonio St).

Join Big Picture Alliance for the next "Second Saturday" monthly professional development series! This month's topic is Budgeting and Fundraising with Kristal Sotomayor of Sotomayor Productions. The session offers a case-study based overview of building a short film budget, exploring grants, campaign strategies, and navigating the current landscape of film fundraising followed by a discussion and Q&A.

Join us for an evening of contemporary cinema examining the lived experiences, histories, and community power of the Mexican diaspora. Co-curated with Erick Barragán, the program features short and feature-length works that navigate labor, memory, migration, and collective organizing across Mexico City, Puebla, and Philadelphia.

Hear from documentary filmmaker, journalist, and curator Kristal Sotomayor!

“Expanding Sanctuary” screens at Movement Movie Night with Amistad Law Project, Juntos, and VietLead on Saturday, November 22 from 4 PM - 7 PM at Vox Populi.

Sotomayor Productions films screen at the Barnes Foundation’s Young Professional’s Night on Friday, November 21st from 7 – 11pm.

"Don't Cry For Me All You Drag Queens" screens at Centre Film Festival on Nov 16th at 10:45 AM at The Rowland Theatre.

Revolutions Film Series Presents “Expanding Sanctuary” and “The Infiltrators” on Tuesday, November 11, 2025 from 7:00pm - 9:30pm at the Landis Cinema (Buck Hall - 219 N. 3rd Street).

“Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens” screens at OutReels Cincinnati on Sunday, November 9, 2025 at 1:00 PM at the Warsaw Federal Incline Theater (801 Matson Pl, Cincinnati Ohio 45204).