The 37th annual New Orleans Film Festival will open on October 22 with a documentary called Victory, a film celebrating the life of Soul Queen of New Orleans Irma Thomas. The festival runs October 22 through 27, showcasing 175 films from around the world, including 53 films from Louisiana.
According to WWL-TV, Victory showcases Thomas's Louisiana roots and celebrates the legacy of New Orleans and its people. The New Orleans Film Society recently announced its first list of films and programs qualified for this year's festival, and the outlet reports that screenings will take place at multiple venues including the Contemporary Arts Center, the Broad Theater, and the Prytania Theatre Uptown.
A Career Nearly Seven Decades in the Making
Thomas was born in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, in 1941, and landed her first national Billboard R&B chart hit in 1960 at just 19 years old with (You Can Have My Husband, But Please) Don't Mess with My Man, according to 64 Parishes. She had secured her first recording contract while working as a waitress in New Orleans before that debut single took off.
In the early 1960s, Thomas teamed with producer Allen Toussaint on New Orleans R&B classics like It's Raining before writing and recording Wish Someone Would Care in 1964, her highest-charting national Billboard Pop hit, per Wikipedia. That same year she recorded Time Is on My Side, a song later covered note-for-note by The Rolling Stones. Decades later, in 2007, Thomas earned her first Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with After the Rain, an album she recorded shortly after losing her New Orleans home during Hurricane Katrina, nearly 50 years into her recording career.
Victory is not the first documentary project built around Thomas's legacy. Her life and career were previously chronicled in the 2021 WYES/PBS documentary Irma: My Life in Music, which drew heavily on archival footage from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, and in WLAE-TV's Suncoast Emmy-winning 2021 special Irma Thomas: The Soul Queen of New Orleans.
Louisiana Music History Runs Through the Lineup
The festival's 2026 slate also includes The Dew Drop Inn: Resistance and Resilience, a film highlighting the historic Central City venue that served as a major Chitlin' Circuit stop for Thomas and other Black musicians during Jim Crow segregation, as reported by Capital B News. The Dew Drop Inn reopened in March 2024 following an $11 million restoration after sitting dormant since 2005. Other titles in the lineup announced by WWL-TV include Scrim, Loves Company, and Matininó.
Beyond film screenings, the festival will feature filmmaker panels, live podcast recordings, and family-friendly workshops, with programming for audiences of all ages, per WWL-TV's report. Virtual screenings will be offered starting on festival dates and continuing through November 1, 2026, giving audiences beyond New Orleans a chance to watch selections remotely.
A Major Southern Cultural Institution
Established in 1989, the New Orleans Film Society has built its autumn festival into a major Southern cultural event that routinely draws 20,000 to 25,000 attendees and more than 300 visiting filmmakers, according to Wikipedia. The festival paused for only one year, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, in the decades since its founding.
The New Orleans Film Festival is also one of the few film showcases in the country designated as an Oscar-qualifying event across all three Academy-accredited short film categories: Narrative Short, Documentary Short, and Animated Short, per the New Orleans Film Society. That status means short film jury winners can gain Academy Award consideration without a standard theatrical release. Independent submissions make up 90% to 95% of the festival's total slate, and official programming practices ensure at least 50% of selected films are directed by women or non-binary filmmakers and 50% by filmmakers of color, according to FilmFreeway. In 2024, Louisiana-based directors accounted for 26% of all selected films.
Unlike many regional film showcases, the Film Society pays mandatory screening fees to all selected filmmakers across both feature and short film categories, a policy that has helped earn the festival repeated recognition from MovieMaker Magazine on its list of 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee. The organization also runs the Emerging Voices Directors Lab, a six-month fellowship offering unrestricted $2,000 stipends and retreats to Louisiana directors of color, culminating in invitations to showcase their work at the annual festival.
Tickets and Schedule Details
New Orleans Film Society members can begin purchasing tickets on September 21, 2026, with sales opening to the general public on September 24, 2026. The full screening schedule is set to be released on September 17, 2026, and all-access passes are already available for purchase on the Film Society's website.
Thomas's ties to New Orleans's cultural fabric extend well beyond the screen. Hoodline has previously reported on her civic support for local institutions and her continued presence on regional festival stages, including her inclusion in this year's NOLA Funk Fest lineup alongside acts like Galactic and Dumpstaphunk.
