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.