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Bio

Kristal Sotomayor is an award-winning director, producer, journalist and curator based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Named one of “10 Latinx Filmmakers You Should Know About” by HipLatina, they are a 2023 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader Honoree and Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellow (formerly known as the JustFilms Fellowship). Kristal’s short Latinx immigrant rights documentary Expanding Sanctuary won the Philadelphia Filmmaker Award at the 2024 BlackStar Film Festival and is distributed through OTV and New Day Films. Their short experimental documentary Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens has screened across the globe at Miami Film Festival, NewFest, GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, and Sidewalk Film Festival. Kristal upcoming debut narrative short film Las Cosas Que Brillan is a coming of age story about a Trans Latina mermaid, produced with support from BlackStar. They are in-development on their debut feature documentary Untitled PARS Project about surveillance of immigrant communities, produced with support from the Sundance Institute. They are in production on their first audio documentary on water rights in Pennsylvania with support from Voice of Witness. They are in-development on a number of short and feature-length directorial projects through their company Sotomayor Productions. Kristal’s work has also been supported by the Outfest, Points North Institute, MDOCS, DCTV, and NeXtDoc. They have curated acclaimed programming across the country at SFFILM, Frameline, True/False Film Fest, and the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. They are the Editor-in-Chief of the cinéSPEAK Journal and their freelance writing bylines include The Philadelphia Inquirer, Documentary Magazine, Autostraddle, AL DÍA, and WHYY.