We’re launching the 2026/27 Southern Manitoba Home Routes season with something a little different — an evening that brings together folk music history, film, conversation and live music.

Winnipeg filmmaker Kevin Nikkel will be touring with his feature documentary When We Became Folk Fest, which explores the remarkable beginnings of the Winnipeg Folk Festival through archival footage shot by the Winnipeg Film Group in 1974 and 1975.

For Home Routes, there’s a particularly meaningful connection. The footage captures Home Routes co-founder Mitch Podolak at the very beginning of his career as a presenter and festival director, helping to build what would become one of Canada’s most influential folk music festivals.

Each evening will include a screening of the film followed by an informal conversation and Q&A with Kevin, giving audiences an opportunity to hear more about the footage, the festival’s beginnings, and the community of artists, organizers and music lovers who came together around it.

And because it wouldn’t be a Home Routes evening without live music, Kevin will be joined on the tour by Winnipeg blues singer and musician Debra Lyn Neufeld, who will perform a short set. Debra Lyn has been part of Winnipeg’s blues community for decades. Her music connects beautifully to the story told in the film — representing the artists and musical traditions that were already thriving throughout Winnipeg when the Folk Festival was founded, and which the festival helped bring into the spotlight.