Kristal Sotomayor

Kristal Sotomayor is an award-winning nonbinary Peruvian American director, producer, journalist and curator based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Named one of “10 Latinx Filmmakers You Should Know About” by HipLatina, they have received distinctions such as the DOC NYC Documentary New Leader Honor and Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellowship (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. Their short experimental documentary Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens has screened across the globe at Newport Beach Film Festival, NewFest, GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, and Sidewalk Film Festival. Kristal is currently in post-production on their debut narrative short film Las Cosas Que Brillan, a coming of age story about a Trans Latina mermaid, produced with support from the BlackStar Filmmaker Lab. They are in-development on a number of short and feature-length directorial projects through their company Sotomayor Productions. Kristal’s work has been supported by the Outfest Creative Hope Fellowship, If/Then & CIFF North Shorts Residency, MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute Visiting Fellowship, DCTV Docu Work-In-Progress Lab, and NeXtDoc Fellowship. 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.