CCWF to host film festival
One of the biggest highlights of the second annual San Quentin Film Festival (SQFF), held at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQRC) on Oct. 23, was the news that the event is expanding — and will be coming to Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) this spring.
The festival started at SQRC approximately one year ago in order to showcase short and feature-length films about the prison system, especially those made by currently and formerly incarcerated people. Select members of the public and residents of the facility were invited to attend. One of the goals of SQFF, according to festival co-founder Cori Thomas, is to bring industry professionals inside prison to start a dialogue with the population. In addition to showing films, the festival program includes Q&A panels with filmmakers and a film competition. The awards include best feature film, best narrative short film, best documentary short film, best documentary pitch and best screenplay pitch.
The Oct. 23 festival received 30 submissions from incarcerated writers in prisons from California to Colorado and Mississippi. Sagal Sadiq, CCWF Paper Trail’s senior editor, made history as the first person from CCWF to win an award at the festival, for best documentary pitch. Sadiq’s proposed film, “All That Remains,” is based on the life of a woman serving 22 years to life at CCWF for second-degree murder and child abandonment.
CCWF Warden Anissa De La Cruz and Public Information Officer (PIO) Lt. Monique Williams accepted the award in person on Sadiq’s behalf.
The coming event at CCWF — named SQFF Presents @ CCWF — is scheduled to debut on March 28, 2026, in the gym. The festival coordinators are planning an abridged version of the program held at SQRC, which will include film screenings, a panel discussion, and a pitch competition specifically for residents at CCWF and the California Institution for Women (CIW).
Conversations about bringing the festival to the women’s facility started this past summer, after Sam Robinson, former SQRC PIO and current SQFF consultant, and Katherine Moore, an SQFF co-producer who handles media relations, visited the CCWF Media Center.
“Our visit to CCWF opened our eyes to the overwhelming challenges faced by residents and administration alike, in terms of engaging volunteers, community partners and program donors, with the facility located so far from a major urban center,” Moore said. “Our goal is to partner with the Media Center on an ongoing basis… as far as we are concerned, this is just the beginning!”
In order to make SQFF Presents @ CCWF a reality, the film festival organizers are partnering with our newspaper, CCWF Paper Trail, which will facilitate the festival’s screenwriting competition. CCWF Paper Trail will reach out to CCWF and CIW residents to submit pitches to the pitch competition before the end of the year. All CCWF and CIW residents are welcome to compete in the film festival. Guidelines about the competition categories and detailed submission directions will be posted on the tablets soon.
