Tayo Odesanya is a writer and director based in South London. Her work was first recognised in 2015, when the graduation film she wrote ‘Maya’ won the Bradford Student Widescreen Film of the Year award. It then went on to the Raindance Film Festival, London Short Film Festival in 2016 and after amassing over 10 nominations from festivals all over Maya won Best International Film at the London International Film Festival and then won Best Foreign Film at the El Dorado International Film Festival.
In 2016, Odesanya put on a directors cap when producing her first short documentary The Night Shift that went on to win Best Documentary Short at the Amsterdam Film Festival and was then screened at BAFTA in the Triforce Film Festival as well as the BFI after winning the Hiive short of the month competition. More recently Odesanya premiered her first animated short, ‘Wireless’, at BFI’s S.O.U.L: Celebrate Connect event. It has since won ‘Best Short under 5mins’ at the Rob Knox Film Festival.
Tayo is currently directing a slate of documentary shorts that explores the hopes and dreams of young people living in Hackney (participants of Immediate Theatre’s Estate Based Youth Theatre project) and identifies the barriers they face to achieving their aspirations. A project made possible through the ‘Walk A Mile In My Shoes’ campaign created by Idris Elba with shoe designer Christian Louboutin.
As well as this Tayo is currently in post production for a series of 3 short films which she both wrote and directed, funded by Oxford & Swansea University. Developed with a Fully Focused Production youth team with the aim to bring awareness to increasing numbers of loneliness and Cyberbullying amongst young people today.
Working in a variety of genres specialising in dramas, Tayo’s work tends to explore unconventional tales, close to home as well as overseas, with the hope to educate, entertain and inspire.