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BIOGRAPHYIndependent writer and director Helen Doyle is one of the co-founders of the Quebec City collective Vidéo Femmes, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. She has directed and produced many powerful documentaries about women’s issues over the years. In 2000, she founded her own production company – Tatouages de la mémoire. Her films have won many awards in Canada and abroad, notably Soul Murmur (2004), awarded at the FIFA, the Créteil Festival, and the Golden Sheaf Awards in Yorkton ; and Frameworks (2014), winner of the Best Canadian Film award at the FIFA, three Gémeaux Awards, and one Étoile prize from SCAM. In 2008 she received the first Film Career Grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), and in 2009, a retrospective of her work was presented at the Cinémathèque québécoise. 2015 saw the release of the book/box set Helen Doyle, cinéaste: La liberté de voir, featuring several essays and four DVDs. After the Odyssey is her 14th medium- or feature-length film.
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director's note
“The world lacks love, justice, beauty…”.
Letizia Battaglia
What can I say about the genesis of the After the Odyssey project, a quest that began seven years ago, about a subject that often forced me to adapt, in the perpetual motion and transformation of migration? The pandemic cut off my momentum, but ultimately I couldn’t give up, I couldn’t remain silent, for the simple reason that I had seen!
Going to Sicily to visit photographer Letizia Battaglia, who fought proudly against the Mafia, was the trigger. I discovered a horrifying situation: the arrival of a large number of unaccompanied minors. While travelling in Europe, I had already noticed the presence of young men from all over and, naturally, I asked myself a question that later become an obsession: “Where are all the girls?” I learned of the existence of well-organized criminal networks. “In Italy, 80% of women subjected to sexual slavery now hail from Nigeria,” read an article in Le Monde diplomatique (Mathilde Harel, November 2018).
From 2008 to 2014, photographer Elena Perlino, a regular at the Rencontres de la photographie de la Gaspésie, travelled through Italy from north to south and documented the life of women in the grip of sexual exploitation. At around the same time Ragazze di Benin City, co-written by Isoke Aikpitanyi and reporter Laura Maragnani, was released.
Elena and Laura marked out my path, but when I began my quest in 2016, the situation had become more complex and the demand was growing for younger and younger girls…
Following several meetings, I chose the testimonies of three young girls. Stéphanie, the one who escapes trafficking thanks to the intervention of a few women upon her arrival. Joy, who falls into the clutches of the traffickers but who bravely flees and finds help. Finally, a second-generation tale, that of Sabrina Efionayi, who was determined to write and publish her own story.
Three stories that end well — a conscious choice. I’m aware that other women continue to suffer, still caught in the tentacles of traffickers… We must therefore not close our eyes to the unacceptable reality that is human trafficking.
During our journey — from Rome to Catania, from Castel Volturno to Palermo — I discovered what welcoming — making you feel welcome — truly meant through the initiatives of civil society and associations such as NewHope, Action Women, and BeFree. Italian women meet and welcome victims, listening to them and working hard with modest means to unleash the potential of these girls who arrive “shattered,” but with such vitality.
In Palermo — a place of resistance — author and activist Alessandra Sciurba embodies the leitmotif of my quest when she tells me, following a rescue at sea: “And they save us!”
These themes could be approached in a sensationalist, “victimizing” way, which I wanted to avoid at all costs. The same goes for angelism, which is equally problematic. There are plenty of pitfalls and traps when you tackle such sensitive subjects. Yet for all its seriousness, I wanted my documentary to be luminous, hopeful even.
When I see how some Italian women look at these girls, beyond a sense of sisterhood, I detect admiration, trust, but also humility. They offer a moment of respite, of encouragement, because they know that these are strong young girls with dreams, who can transform and enrich our societies.
For this project, I challenged myself to write in a poetic/political manner in order to direct not a hard-hitting film, but an invitation to collective reflection, a meaningful encounter between the Other and the Host, with a capital H for Human.
Letizia Battaglia
What can I say about the genesis of the After the Odyssey project, a quest that began seven years ago, about a subject that often forced me to adapt, in the perpetual motion and transformation of migration? The pandemic cut off my momentum, but ultimately I couldn’t give up, I couldn’t remain silent, for the simple reason that I had seen!
Going to Sicily to visit photographer Letizia Battaglia, who fought proudly against the Mafia, was the trigger. I discovered a horrifying situation: the arrival of a large number of unaccompanied minors. While travelling in Europe, I had already noticed the presence of young men from all over and, naturally, I asked myself a question that later become an obsession: “Where are all the girls?” I learned of the existence of well-organized criminal networks. “In Italy, 80% of women subjected to sexual slavery now hail from Nigeria,” read an article in Le Monde diplomatique (Mathilde Harel, November 2018).
From 2008 to 2014, photographer Elena Perlino, a regular at the Rencontres de la photographie de la Gaspésie, travelled through Italy from north to south and documented the life of women in the grip of sexual exploitation. At around the same time Ragazze di Benin City, co-written by Isoke Aikpitanyi and reporter Laura Maragnani, was released.
Elena and Laura marked out my path, but when I began my quest in 2016, the situation had become more complex and the demand was growing for younger and younger girls…
Following several meetings, I chose the testimonies of three young girls. Stéphanie, the one who escapes trafficking thanks to the intervention of a few women upon her arrival. Joy, who falls into the clutches of the traffickers but who bravely flees and finds help. Finally, a second-generation tale, that of Sabrina Efionayi, who was determined to write and publish her own story.
Three stories that end well — a conscious choice. I’m aware that other women continue to suffer, still caught in the tentacles of traffickers… We must therefore not close our eyes to the unacceptable reality that is human trafficking.
During our journey — from Rome to Catania, from Castel Volturno to Palermo — I discovered what welcoming — making you feel welcome — truly meant through the initiatives of civil society and associations such as NewHope, Action Women, and BeFree. Italian women meet and welcome victims, listening to them and working hard with modest means to unleash the potential of these girls who arrive “shattered,” but with such vitality.
In Palermo — a place of resistance — author and activist Alessandra Sciurba embodies the leitmotif of my quest when she tells me, following a rescue at sea: “And they save us!”
These themes could be approached in a sensationalist, “victimizing” way, which I wanted to avoid at all costs. The same goes for angelism, which is equally problematic. There are plenty of pitfalls and traps when you tackle such sensitive subjects. Yet for all its seriousness, I wanted my documentary to be luminous, hopeful even.
When I see how some Italian women look at these girls, beyond a sense of sisterhood, I detect admiration, trust, but also humility. They offer a moment of respite, of encouragement, because they know that these are strong young girls with dreams, who can transform and enrich our societies.
For this project, I challenged myself to write in a poetic/political manner in order to direct not a hard-hitting film, but an invitation to collective reflection, a meaningful encounter between the Other and the Host, with a capital H for Human.
- Helen Doyle, director