Five short films have been produced to showcase 2026 Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages. As well as one ‘Festival Highlights’ film, the Festival, the case studies were chosen to profile the range of events and activities in the Festival, with a focus on the inspiration that comes from being creative with languages and exploring diverse cultures.
These films showcase the aims and impact of the Festival, children and young people’s engagement and teachers’ feedback, as well as delivery partners’ views. They will be shared widely, included in our evaluation and used for future promotion and awareness-raising for the North East’s flagship Festival – the biggest in the UK, with 115,246 children and young people taking part between 6th January and 31st March this year.
Click on the images below to watch the short films, which last between 2 and 3 minutes each or download this summary of the Festival 2026 films, with information about each film and vimeo links.
In addition, this short film was produced with St Teresa’s Primary School, sharing their experience of learning the Festival Song, Love is the Only River, in Spanish:
Acknowledgements
Thank you to all involved in funding and producing these films and a special thank you to all the teachers and children and young people who took part. Schools were asked to provide permissions from parents and carers for pupils to be filmed.
The filming was funded by the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority, as part of a grant to Newcastle City Council for co-ordination, communications and commissioned projects. Festival communications partners. Thanks also to all partners involved in the films and to B7 videographers worked with the Festival Coordinator and Communications lead to identify the case study subjects and liaise with delivery partners to arrange filming.
The Festival was part-funded by the North East MSA
The Festival film production was supported by:
