SCREENING | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15 | 11 AM–5 PM | $10–$75
Sanctuary Cinema presents Sovereign Lens Film Festival
An official event of the Rising High Arts Festival
Sanctuary Cinema is bringing the Sovereign Lens Film Festival to FUSION as part of the Rising High Arts Festival on Thursday, October 15, from 10 AM–5 PM!
The Sovereign Lens Film Festival is a one-day community-centered short film festival uplifting stories that reclaim, reframe, and celebrate historically excluded and self-determined storytellers. The festival is an evolution of Sanctuary Cinema’s work as a monthly, community-centered nonfiction film and conversation project. Founded in 2025, Sanctuary Cinema has hosted free public screenings across Albuquerque—with facilitated panels, local nonprofits, shared meals, and audience participation—grounded in the principle that storytelling is a shared ethical and communal practice. The Sovereign Lens Film Festival extends that mission into a dedicated festival platform, creating a space where filmmakers and communities can meet across difference, witness lived truth, and move toward action.
Narrative sovereignty is the right and power of individuals or communities—especially those who have been marginalized or misrepresented—to define, tell, structure, and control their own stories. It means shaping one’s own history, identity, perspectives, and representation on one’s own terms rather than having those stories imposed, filtered, or distorted by external forces—whether media, institutions, dominant cultures, or colonial legacies.
It requires:
Authentic authorship—where storytellers have agency over what gets emphasized, how it's framed, what voice is used.
Freedom from stereotypes/templates—being able to resist reductive or pre-packaged representations.
Self-determination in meaning—what themes, values, aesthetics matter to the community telling the story.
Control over distribution & audience—determining who stories are for, how they are shared, and how they are preserved.
For example, in film or documentary, narrative sovereignty means centering the people whose lives are being depicted as agents (not just subjects), involving them in decision-making about what gets shown, and resisting external narratives that might misrepresent, “other,” or silence.
Grounded in narrative sovereignty, the festival centers documentary and nonfiction films while welcoming narrative works that align with themes of identity, cultural memory, belonging, and collective transformation.
This one-day event features curated screenings, filmmaker Q&As, and a closing reception honoring the artists and communities behind the work.
Free parking is available in FUSION’s lot and is also free along 1st Street after 6 PM (more parking info + map available here).
TICKETS:
–All Access Day Pass with Awards Dinner $75.00
OR
–10:30 PM Opening Reception: $20.00
–12 noon Short Films Screening: $10.00
–2 PM Short Films Screening $10.00
–4 PM Short Films Screening $10.00
–6:30 PM Awards Dinner $50.00
Learn more about Sanctuary Cinema in this conversation between Sanctuary Cinema founders, shiloh burton and Luis Peña-Álvarez, and FUSION staff writer Rudolfo Carrillo, “Shelter from a Storm: Narrative Sovereignty at Sanctuary Cinema.”
SUPPORT SANCTUARY CINEMA
Please consider supporting Sanctuary Cinema. Your donation helps bring these gatherings to life. It supports film licensing, artist honoraria, community dinners, documentation, outreach, and the quiet labor of building an enduring cultural home—one where voices too often pushed to the margins can be seen, heard, and held. To learn more, click the link below.
ABOUT SANCTUARY CINEMA
A brave space for transformative justice and belonging through film.
Founded in 2025 by shiloh burton and Luis Peña-Alvarez, Sanctuary Cinema (SC) is a New Mexico–based nonfiction film and community dialogue project dedicated to creating brave spaces for belonging, reflection, and transformative justice through documentary film. Anchored in narrative sovereignty, SC screens stories told by those most impacted, honoring lived experience as essential knowledge and rejecting passive spectatorship by fostering audience engagement, collective storytelling, and civic action.
The free, monthly series activates accessible public venues across Albuquerque, pairing POV/PBS films with facilitated panels, local filmmakers, cultural workers, nonprofit partners, and audience participation. By bridging artistic, civic, and community worlds, Sanctuary Cinema builds trust, strengthens relationships, and provides pathways for meaningful local engagement, using documentary film as a catalyst for collective care, collaboration, and community-led change.
Quality bar service will be provided by Safe House Distilling Co. and Teller Genuine Vodka. Click here for some nearby dining options.
The Rising High Arts Festival is possible thanks to the support from:
