About the festival

Welcome to the Happy Soul Festival website...We are now in our fifth successive year and what a busy time it's been - registering as an independent charity and expanding into another London borough, which is fantastic! Whilst our structure may have become more formal our ethos remains the same in that we aim to engage with Black and Minority Ethnic communities and promote mental health and wellbeing through film screenings, the arts and community events.

We've come a long way from the three-day pilot event in Sutton in 2007 supported by the South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust. This year we ran a 13-day festival from 31 May to 12 June 2011 running across seven London boroughs with events and film screenings taking place in Kingston, Lambeth, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, Wandsworth and our latest addition - Greenwich, in collaboration with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust.

The festival team worked hard and put together a tremendous programme including award-winnning international films from Korea, India and Iran as well as films closer to home. To compliment this we had an action-packed schedule of London wide community events, some of which were joined by celebrities who have their own personal experience of mental health.

It was a fantastic few weeks, which we hope will build on the festival's success in raising awareness and de-stigmatising mental health issues in Black and Minority Ethnic communities in London.

We will keep in touch with you with any upcoming events if you send us your details.

Raficq Abdulla - Chairman Happy Soul Festival

Happy Soul Festival is a Registered Charity: 1140873