Gather: A Sanctuary Cinema and Explora! Screening & Panel
Thursday, May 28, 2026
05:30 PM - 09:00 PM
FUSION
Fusion, 1st Street Northwest, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Join Sanctuary Cinema, in collaboration with W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Expora, and Xstudio, for a community screening of Gather:
Illumine Presents In association with Ager Meillier Films and First Nations Institute
A film by Sanjay Rawal
Director: Sanjay Rawal Producer: Tanya Meillier
Executive Producers: Jason Momoa, Brian Mendoza, Jennifer Buffett, Wendy Schmidt, Christine Schantz. “GATHER” 74 min feature documentary
Gather is an intimate portrait of a growing movement amongst Indigenous Americans to reclaim their spiritual and cultural identities through obtaining sovereignty over their ancestral food systems, while battling against the historical trauma brought on by centuries of genocide.
SYNOPSIS: Gather follows the stories of natives on the frontlines of a growing movement to re connect with spiritual and cultural identities that were devastated by genocide. Am indigenous chef embarks on an ambitious project to reclaim ancient food ways on the Apache reservation; in South Dakota a gifted Lakota high school student, raised on a buffalo ranch, is proving her tribes native wisdom through her passion for science; and a group of young men of the Yurok tribe in Northern California are struggling to keep their culture alive and rehabilitate the habitat of their sacred salmon. All these stories combine to show how the reclaiming and recovery of ancient food ways is a way forward for native Americans to bring back health and vitality to their people.
Agenda
- 5:30PM: Doors
- 6:00PM: Film Screening
- 7:30PM: Panel + Discussion
About Sanctuary Cinema
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.
About Explora!
Explora is a unique place that puts people’s learning in their own hands.
Explora has been from the very beginning, a collaboration of great visions. It began around 1983 with two individual groups who with no knowledge of each other’s existence had similar ideas: the first group envisioned a “children’s exploratorium,” while the second had the idea of a “science and technology exploratorium.” Since the merging of the two ideals in 1995 Explora has been, and will continue to be, a learning place for people of all races, ages, genders, abilities, and backgrounds. We believe that family, caregivers, peers, and colleagues are essential partners in learning. Explora advocates for lifelong, materials-rich inquiry, while acknowledging that it isn’t always easy. We value curiosity, hands-on trial and error, and the agency and growth that comes with both failing and succeeding.
About W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation began with the humble, yet visionary commitments of W.K. Kellogg, who wanted to invest his fortune in the health, happiness and well-being of children. With hometown pride and deep care for the place that raised him, he started by investing in the children and families of Battle Creek, Michigan.
W.K. Kellogg cared about children, the conditions in which they were raised and what the future held for them. He believed in the power of communities to forge solutions to the problems facing them and he wanted to equip people with the knowledge and resources to pursue those solutions.
Vision, humility and belief in people are the values stewarded by the Kellogg Foundation for more than 90 years. Today those values take shape in our support of community-led efforts to ensure every child and family can thrive, with access to good health care, good food, good education, good jobs and equitable opportunities.
About FUSION
FUSION, home to the FUSION Theatre Company, is a center for arts and culture in Downtown Albuquerque. Our multi-venue, 35,000 square foot campus hosts live music, dance, comedy, theater, and myriad of special events. With three stages and both indoor and outdoor event spaces, FUSION is New Mexico’s home for creative and cultural exploration.
An anchor of the Downtown Albuquerque Arts & Cultural District, the FUSION campus includes The Cell, 708, and The Meadow.
Building on our dedication to community partnership, in 2016 FUSION began an economic development project that provides co-operative office, meeting, culinary, rehearsal, and performance spaces. As a partner organization for the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund Programs’ Resiliency Residency program, FUSION serves as fiscal sponsor and host for 18 resident artists. FUSION also serves as fiscal sponsor to a variety of fledgling community organizations, sharing resources to nurture the growth of healthy arts and culture in Albuquerque.
