The Annual Soul West Fest is the most exclusive urban film & music festival in Arizona. Soul West Fest takes place in the fall each year with up and coming filmmakers showing their content to a niche audience, filmmaker panel discussions, and live musical performances.

Soul West Fest, LLC (SWF) is an Arizona Limited Liability Company whose mission is to Promote and Support Urban Films and Filmmakers, Soul Music, Urban Culture and Education. The Soul West Fest Foundation (SWFF) ( 501c3 organization) in association with Pathways to the World, Inc. raise scholarship funds for young people (grades 6-12) to attend art, film and music apprenticeship programs. SWFF continues to bring awareness and initiate programs for the arts in education and financial literacy.

Soul West Fest gives birth to urban film and the New Black Renaissance in the Valley of the Sun– from film to TV, VR to online work, and music to live performance. As a platform for creative expression, independent film-making, and mesmerizing entertainment, SWF champions emerging and established voices, showcasing award-winning urban films and filmmakers, soul music, culture and new technology through premieres, exhibitions, talks and live performances.

During 3 days, we invite you to the Valley of the Sun to enjoy Soulful Sounds, Black & Brown Excellence, Great Food, Good Vibes, Top Notch Entertainment, Events & Exclusive Parties. This is Resort-Style vibes and networking with economic, educational, social, health and wealth initiatives at the helm. Come Expose your gifts, talents and abilities to an earnest Film Community in the South-West Market of Arizona, California, Colorado & Nevada. Soul West Fest provides a platform to showcase cutting edge films, panels, live performances from some of the most talented musicians and awesome vibes.

While your film will be shown on the big screen at the festival, We will showcase your trailers on all our social media platforms leading up to the festival to build anticipation and momentum. We will also showcase your film on the Soul West Fest Live Stream and on our ROKU Channel: Soul West Fest during the festival and offer a community tab for the audience to vote.

This event takes an original and imaginative approach to content because there are very few outlets for Urban Filmmakers and Musicians to showcase their talent collectively on a national stage.

The impact we hope to achieve with this event will certainly be artistic in nature (i.e. showcasing music and filmmakers content); it will also be intellectual in most of our sponsors and vendors will provide educational content on financial matters and literacy; All festivals are communal and social by default; and civically, we hope to improve communities of color through creative initiatives.

We hope you will consider Soul West Fest to showcase your content. We welcome innovative and original opportunities and look forward to working with you.

Thank you for reading! :)

Soul West Fest will offer awards/prizes for these categories:

Audience Awards:
Best Feature Film/Documentary
Best Short/Web Series

30-72 minutes minimum run time (Feature/Documentary lengths)
20 minutes maximum run time inclusive of credits (Web Series/Shorts)
6 minutes maximum run time inclusive of credits (Music Videos)
Writer, director or producer must be a person of African descent, or the film content must have a multicultural perspective.
Entrants must be 18 years of age or older.
Competition is open to U.S. and international entries.
Films must be in the English language or contain English-language subtitles.
Films must have commenced principal photography on or after January 1, 2019.
While it is our preference to exhibit films in this competitive section that are world premieres, Narrative Features that have previously screened at up to two (2) other festivals are eligible for this section.

Films that have been, or will be, broadcast or streamed on television or the Internet, or released via any other public distribution platform (theatrical, Blu-ray, DVD, streaming, VOD, etc.) in any country prior to June 18, 2020 are not eligible for this category.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Ric Murphy

    It's an honor to have our film, “Arrival of the First Documented Africans in English America” picked as an official selection alongside other films from other brilliant filmmakers! Highly recommended festival! Thanks for everything!

    November 2023
  • Soul West Fest is a beautiful festival and focus. The mixing of music, culture and film together makes for a dynamic and unique experience! Thank you for including Assaman in your 2022 Official Selection. Great communication along the way!

    November 2022
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    Response from festival:

    Thank you Katrina. It was a pleasure connecting with you and thank you for submitting this season. Keep creating amazing content!

  • A wonder festival in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. I really like this festival because of the hospitality and energy of the staff. Communication was great and the theaters that we screened in were amazing. I’m thrilled to say that we took home the audience choice award for our film Black Daddy: The Movie.

    October 2022
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    Response from festival:

    Thank you Dame for attending, participating and submitting an awesome film. We look forward to your next project!

  • Valerie Hicks Hale

    What an honor it was to have my film Sowing and Weeping selected for Soul West Fest. It is a great place for new filmmakers to have their skills recognized and critiqued. .

    November 2021
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    Response from festival:

    Thank you Valerie for submitting to Soul West Fest. We really appreciate having great content like yours showcased in what we do!

  • Justice Gamble

    Soul West Fest is awesome! I highly recommend this festival. I'm truly grateful for the love and support they provided during such a scary time in our world.

    July 2021
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    Response from festival:

    Thank you Justice! Congrats on an awesome film. We really appreciate having content such as yours on our platform! Keep up the great work!