ODILE

Odile wants to give her mixed-race son, Jean-Philippe a good life when she and her newlywed white husband, Mathieu move from Paris to London. Her husband, who because of the language barriers, gets a kitchen porter job in a restaurant, has a hard time adjusting to their new immigrant life. From a loving caring husband, he quickly became a drunk and violent wife beater. Odile, who managed to get a chambermaid job, sticks with him and even covers up for him for the sake of their child but when he turns abusive to Jean-Philippe, she plans to get away and finds refuge in a women’s shelter. She hides from her husband moving from one hostel to another until one day… 

…her husband is found dead in a homeless shed! 

 Odile now a widow has no reason to hide. When she receives an offer to move out of her hostel and settle down in a permanent social council housing, she can’t thank her lucky stars. The new neighbourhood, however, turns out to be one of the worst crime-ridden housing estates in London and now she’s stuck. She is given no choice but to accept her lot, she’s stuck in this new misery. Fearing for her son’s life after he comes home one day, bleeding from a stab, she decides to ask to be moved elsewhere but is laughed off by her local council officer. Her only option is to move to a private rental, but she knows private renting would cost her a fortune, but she’s driven to raise the money one way or another. She exhausts all her options from fundraising outside the train station, to applying for a trust fund at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, to speaking to her boss for a loan, asking her pastor for help, and even approaching a sleazy businessman to vouch for her at the bank after being turned down without a guarantor, until finally she meets Maria a high-end Brazilian escort.  

What will a desperate mother do to save her child’s life? ...

From a feature-length film format to a 6-part limited series format (seven months ago), ODILE has been a long time coming project. On many occasions, i felt like abandoning it all together, but then, something kept reminding me of the importance of telling it. 

The story of ODILE is inspired by true events that I was requested to provide support for, over fifteen years ago, when I was the CEO of Stand Up For Africa, a charity that used to work with young people here in the UK and in Africa. With poverty, social housing crisis, domestic violence and gang-related crimes reaching an all-time high in globalised cities such as our London, I am truly hoping ODILE becomes a fresh voice for poor families caught in the middle of these occurrences and helps bring more attention to these tragic issues. 

That is why, i applaud celebrities such as Mica Paris MBE and Shaffy Bello for giving the project their full backing, and i am praying more public figures and organisations join these two amazing ladies, to help us film and get ODILE out there. We very much need all the backing we can get, that's from here in the UK or internationally!

Thank you!

Elsie Nemlin