Soho Create Festival 2016
The third annual Soho Create Festival ran for a week in early June, and it's been the third one I've been to. It's an absolute gem amongst the many festivals in London, its all about creativity, and has over a hundred astoundingly well-curated speakers across fifty events. They also have some beautiful venues around Soho Square, including the French Protestant Church (below) and The House of St. Barnabus. What's been great about Soho Create on a selfish level is that this festival is super low-key (their communications are the quiestest you will ever find at a festival), and there's been something really special about sitting in on small talks with amazing writers, actors, directors, and other creative industry big wigs. However, I do think more people would love to know about Soho Create, and see these special panel talks. They've stepped it up a bit this year by having more of the talks in the evenings, and erecting two large inflatable domes in the middle of Soho Square. I missed cosy afternoons sat in the Soho Theatre or in one of the churches, but I have to concede it's better that the talks are more visible, and more accessible for those working the nine to five. I noticed a much younger crowd this year, particularly in talks about fashion, filmmaking and digital journalism. On the other hand, I like it's still small enough that one of the ushers from last year remembered me and greeted me by name at each talk, and I love that it's small enough for anyone to ask questions, so you get a laid back discussion vibe.
A big highlight for me was the talk with Asif Kapadia (above), the director of Senna and the Amy Whitehouse film. He told the audience he had watched over 15,000 hours of footage to make Senna, and that whilst making Amy he spent ages staring at her eyes in clips, trying to get what she was feeling so he could express that in the film. He said he was going though a phase of not being emotionally effected by fiction film, only documentaries. Speaking of documentaries, I loved the panel with filmmakers Molly Dineen and Rebecca Frayn (below) who both explained how they'd become disillusioned with documentary as a medium for storytelling. Rebecca said it's hard to tell the truth in documentary, and that a lot of films in this genre are just factual entertainment and PR. She also talked about YouTube being more democratic for storytelling, and told us about her sons, whose channel JacksGap is massive.
I also loved Roisin Murphy and Elaine Constantine (below) talking about making projects work, no matter what. Elaine spent seventeen years getting her film Northern Soul made and distributed, and said that not once did she think "this isn't going to happen." They are two hugely inspiring women who are all about going after what you want.
Other gems included hearing Max Stafford Clark talking about the future of theatre in London, the editors of Elle and Cosmo's digital sites talking about honesty in reporting online, and a trio of young artists and art dealers talking about the importance of social media in London's current art scene.
I'd recommend signing up to Soho Create's email newsletter to find out when tickets go on sale around April or May, and they also have a few other events throughout the year. Each year the festival will probably get bigger, so enjoy it now whilst it's small and you can really feel like part of discussions on what it means to be creative, how to make a living from creativity, and the role of Soho in the creative industries. I never regret seeing any of the talks, there's always something that deeply inspires me at each one, and you can learn a lot from people at the top of their game and how they make it work.
Check out the Bloggeration review of Henry Holland and Patrick Grant's panel