‘Supacell’ Producer Sheila Nortley Behind Supernatural Romance ‘Osoro’
EXCLUSIVE: Supacell producer Sheila Nortley is making feature film Osoro, a supernatural romance set against the backdrop of noughties Black Britain.
Osoro originally screened as an award-winning short and is now being developed as a feature with Nortley and My Accomplice. The short starred Supacell’s Nadine Mills, Shingai Shoniwa, who is the lead singer of British band Noisettes, Rima Nsubuga and Kaine Lawrence. Casting is not yet confirmed for the feature. Early-stage financing conversations are underway.
The movie is inspired by Nortley’s experience of loss. It follows Alesha Amoah, who is the picture of success, but when she returns home to care for her ailing mother, old family wounds resurface. When she unexpectedly reconnects with her high school sweetheart, Kadien, the reunion is tender and bittersweet – until tragedy strikes, drawing Alesha into ‘Osoro’, a mystical limbo accessed through an ancestral ritual.
Nortley worked with Mills on Netflix UK’s Supacell, with Mills playing Sabrina Clarke in Rapman’s hit series, which is currently filming a second season.
“Osoro is a story about that very human, yet very otherworldly, space between love, loss, grief and memory and how those things stay with us,” said Nortley. “It’s a sweeping romance, a supernatural love story, and it draws on elements of my own experiences with grief. The short captured this beautifully and developing the feature has allowed us the space to expand that vision into a richer, more cinematic world.”
Osoro is created and written by Nortley with Jamie Clark serving as executive producer and Aleksandra Bilić and Dorottya Székely as producers from My Accomplice. The short was originally created with Cameron Roach’s Rope Ladder Fiction.
