On April 17, we kicked off our 20th anniversary film screening series at the Lark Theater in Larkspur with a screening of Sing Sing, grounded in this year’s theme: a fundamental right to heal. Thank you to the Lark Theater, our board members and planning committee members Satch Slavin and Taylor Kohles, our incredible panelists, and our community for showing up and engaging in this important conversation.

The evening featured a screening of the critically acclaimed film Sing Sing, based on the true story of Divine G (Colman Domingo), who is incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York and finds purpose through a theater program inside the prison.

Following the screening, a powerful panel discussion, facilitated by our Founder and Executive Director Keith Wattley, featured Sean San José, an actor in Sing Sing; Lesley Currier, Managing Director of Marin Shakespeare Company; and Troy Williams, a former client, current UnCommon Law Advisory Board member, and founder of the San Quentin Prison Report. During the panel, they explored the film’s real-life connections — how many incarcerated people are survivors themselves, and how access to the arts creates space for healing, expression, and transformation.

“This kind of work, it comes back and it pays it forward in ways that I don’t think that we really fully understand yet, as a society, because those of us who come from that real life can go back and pull people out of that.”

-Troy Williams

This is why we talk about a fundamental right to heal, because nearly everyone who’s in prison for a serious crime survived violence before they ever harmed anybody else. We don’t talk about them as survivors, but they’re absolute survivors. But we need to.

-Keith Wattley

Thank you to everyone who showed up, shared space, and engaged in this conversation. As we continue to mark 20 years of UnCommon Law, we remain grounded in the belief that healing is a fundamental right. This event was just the beginning. Join us for more film screenings this summer as part of our 20th anniversary series. Stay tuned for more details on our 20th Anniversary page.