Everything at once

There's a particular kind of day that only happens in the run-up to a festival. Yesterday was one of them.

Tickets went live. The first of our 2026 filmmaker profiles went out. And a new episode of the Soulcast landed. Three things that each took weeks of quiet work, all arriving in the same afternoon, all at once.

I'm not complaining. This is the good part.

Tickets are live

S.O.U.L. Fest 2026 runs 5–13 September, across London, Birmingham and Newcastle. Tickets are on sale now — https://www.soulfilmfest.co.uk/whats-on.

Every year, the moment tickets go live is the moment the festival stops being a plan and starts being a thing that is actually going to happen. There's a date. There are seats. There are films that people are going to sit in a dark room together and watch. Eight editions in, that still does something to me.

If you've been with us before, you know how the rooms feel. If you haven't — this is the year.

The first of seven filmmaker profiles

We've also published the first in a series of filmmaker profiles running across the month. Seven filmmakers, seven conversations, one a week or thereabouts, in the build-up to September.

First up: Edem Wornoo — a Ghanaian-British writer-director from South London he won Best Screenplay at S.O.U.L. Fest in 2022 for BUTTERFLY AFFECT, which makes this a homecoming. Watch.

These profiles matter to me more than almost anything else we publish. A programme is a list of titles. A profile is a person: where they came from, what they were trying to do, what it cost them to do it. The films in our programme didn't arrive from nowhere. Somebody fought for each one. The profiles are how we say so out loud.

Six more to come. Keep an eye out.

A new Soulcast

And the latest episode of the S.O.U.L. Cast is up — Kiell Smith-Bynoe on Ghosts, bad agents & the sketch show nobody would make. Download

Full-on mode

So that's where we are. From here to September, it's all festival. Programme announcements, more profiles, more S.O.U.L. Cast partners to confirm, rooms to fill, and a few things I can't talk about yet but very much want to.

We started S.O.U.L. in 2014 because the films we wanted to see weren't being shown and the filmmakers making them weren't being backed. Twelve years, 133 films, 240-plus filmmakers and a BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying festival later, the reason hasn't changed. The scale has.

Iyare Director & Executive Producer, S.O.U.L. Film

S.O.U.L. Fest 2026 runs 5–13 September in London, Birmingham and Newcastle. Tickets and full programme at soulfilm.co.uk.

The job that doesn't pay me yet

I've been up since before dawn and I don't even mind.

That probably tells you everything you need to know.

This morning I've built web pages, written event copy, created a brand new profile on a platform I'd never touched before, managed social media, responded to comments — and I did all of it happily. Enthusiastically, even.

I'm the Director and Executive Producer of SoulFest. It is, without question, the job I was made for. The problem? Right now, it doesn't pay me a penny.

So here's where I'm at: I'm doing the work I love, with everything I have, and my mission — the thing that got me out of bed before the sun came up — is to turn this into a living. To make the job that currently feeds my soul also feed me.

That's the goal. That's the work. And mornings like this remind me exactly why it's worth fighting for.

Consistency is hard

And just like that, it’s been three days since I wrote on the blog I promised myself I’d write daily. I have been getting on with planning this next stage however.

I realise that one of my favourite jobs ever was being a presenter, I’d really like my next working phase to entail at least a little presenting but I’d like it to be on my own terms. In 2025 what does someone in my position do? All together… start a podcast!!!

So to go with this blog in 2026 I plan to put out a SOUL Cast, an idea I have toyed with for years and now is the time to have a go seriously. So, what would my podcast entail? Two things! Firstly, insider updates on planning and curating SOUL Fest and secondly interviews with incredible people from our communities living their creative dreams. To this end I have been compiling a list of potential guests from my network for me to tap for interviews. It’s a good list and the first couple of people I have approached have been agreeable so maybe this could be a viable option.

Next I’ll start setting up the publishing infrastructure and scheduling a pilot episode.

BTW: I thought I’d use AI to help me make images for this blog. Using the prompt “create an image of me as a podcaster” I created the images attached to this blog post. Either AI is not all it’s cracked up to be or it can’t work with black faces. The final image I made by combining a photo myself and an AI image in photo editing software.

Taking the plunge.

So apparently, I'm writing a blog?

Why, in 2025, am I, a grown ass man, starting a blog? Well in short, I am at a cross roads in my working career and I have decided that I want to enjoy, rather than dread, working.

As I audit all the various things I am involved in I realise that the greatest joy I get working is during the time I spend on S.O.U.L. and so want to transition into running S.O.U.L. Film and S.O.U.L. Fest full-time.

I want this to be my full time job!

This is scary! The film festival has been running for seven years and I am currently working on getting it to its next iteration and thinking about what the eighth year of the film festival is going to look like.

But ask me how much money I’ve made doing S.O.U.L. Fest in that time. I’ll give you a clue it’s a really round number.

So what makes me think that could change now, I’m not sure, instinct maybe?

I’m just hoping that I can pull all the various threads of all the things I do and that I dream of doing into a cohesive and, hopefully, lucrative business and I believe that the start of that is right here blogging my progress.

So, if you’d like, please follow along. I’m committing to writing something here everyday and documenting my journey, however it turns out, of leaving a full-time job and chasing my dream of creating a media brand.

S.O.U.L. blog

We did our first ever S.O.U.L event in 2014. We have always wanted to build community in the film, TV and media industries and that’s what those early events and the last seven years of film festival were about.

A blog that keeps you up to date with how and what we’re doing seems well over due so, here goes…