BAFTA and BIFA qualifying · Eighth edition
Curtain up in
The festival is on
The festival opens at Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle — Saturday 5 September, 1pm.
Now booking
The 2026 programme is live
A UK first look at footage from Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Children of Blood and Bone, with the director in attendance — sold out, returns only. Yemi Bamiro’s Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story screening in all three cities. Bradley Banton’s debut feature More Life for one night in Brixton. Eight competition shorts, industry panels and four evenings of online sessions.
The festival film
Black Is Beautiful
The Kwame Brathwaite Story
Everyone knows the phrase. Almost nobody knows the man. Yemi Bamiro’s award-winning documentary on the Harlem photographer who helped build a movement — with the director and producer in the room at all three screenings.
Newcastle 5 Sept · Birmingham 6 Sept · London 11 Sept
After September it moves to streaming. These are the last dates in a cinema.
Nine days, three cities
- Sat 5 September Newcastle Tyneside Cinema — opening day
- Sun 6 September Birmingham MAC Birmingham — third year
- Mon 7 – Thu 10 September Online Four evenings of industry sessions
- Thu 10 – Sun 13 September London The Ritzy, Brixton, then BFI Southbank — closing weekend and the Awards
S.O.U.L. Cast
Can’t get enough S.O.U.L.?
The festival is nine days. Our podcast runs the other 356 — long, unhurried conversations with Black British filmmakers about how they actually built their own way in. On Apple, Spotify, YouTube and Acast.
Don’t miss the additions
Programmes grow. Guests get confirmed. Screenings get added, and the best ones sell out before we have finished announcing them. Our mailing list hears first.