‘I LOVE music and music’s going to keep me going forever. And I’m going to be famous. I’m going to be a musician, and people are going to respect me. Millions of people are going to buy my records because they know that my message is out there. And people are going to know that I’m an honest artist.”
The lasting words of Beldina Odenyo, as the credits then roll on new music documentary Bel, which will be closing the Edinburgh International Film Festival this month.
Beldina Odenyo, “one of the best of us”, who also went by the stage name Heir of the Cursed, took her own life in November 2021, at the age of 31. She was still fresh on the lips of the Scottish music community after a breathtaking performance at the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) award ceremony in Usher Hall. She was “on the cusp of stardom”, an upward trajectory, without a doubt. As she hit the after-party of the event, all and sundry wanted to congratulate her on an incredible cover of Kathryn Joseph’s The Bird. She was buzzing, and well, you would be too after a performance like that.
Bel, as her friends knew her, is the title of Louise Lockwood’s affecting debut feature documentary (produced by Hopscotch Films) which will have its world premiere closing the Edinburgh Film Festival.
And as Bel held much sorrow within her, there is not so much an outpouring but some of that sorrow comes out raw and honestly in Louise’s film.
She was taken from her mum in Kenya, who she loved dearly, at the tender age of six by her father to her new home in Dumfriesshire, a small village called Kirkconnel, where she experienced unsettlingly disturbing acts of racism.
Determined to become a famous musician during her formative years, it was clear that music was an inevitable pathway for Bel to find her voice during many formidable years of growing up in rural Scotland.
The Covid lockdown was a time of hardship for any artist, musician or simply anyone seeking human connection. Bel used this time to turn her new home in Paisley into a studio and got to work on creating her album, her debut LP, something that she was keen to record herself, retaining complete control, and which would obviously propel her to super stardom.
Beldina had ambitious plans, but not only that – she had the talent to back them. And when she died, her sister Leah McAleer (who she grew up with in Scotland) made a promise to Bel that she would continue to keep her voice alive.
She was one of the most incredible people you would ever meet, for those of you who were lucky enough to do so. Often after a discussion with Bel, you’d feel that she’d seen it all and come back to warn us. She permeated your soul and moved you in a way that relatively few musicians can.
Poet Jackie Kay, an associate producer on the film, says: “Hers was a haunting presence; she was mesmerising to see perform live.” It wasn’t just me that got it.
For these reasons and plenty more, many now have the privileged opportunity to hear this stunning Scottish talent, if not through her music, then through this film hitting one of Edinburgh’s key festivals in August.
In the film, McAleer describes Bel’s music, “that sound that comes is the purest expression of what it means to be broken and what it means to survive.”
Once she was gone, her sister took the music that she recorded with the intention of a debut LP release into Chem 19 recording studios, and the best version of these recordings have been produced to give Bel that chance at stardom she always wished for.
And not only that, she’s going to reach international audiences, as she gets to close the renowned Film Festival through this film, thanks to EIFF director and CEO, Paul Ridd being compassionately moved by the film and seeing the relevance and poignancy of Edinburgh being the perfect place for the first screening.
You are all so incredibly lucky, and friend and peer Joseph would agree.
Speaking with the award-winning musician, who features throughout this documentary, she tells me fondly that: “It’s just so beautiful that she has recorded so much of herself. We’re so lucky that she will now exist forever.”
The music will very much keep her going forever, just as she states in this film.
“Does it hold you? Does it feed you? In this moment. Is it enough? You are enough.”
Those are some of Bel’s lyrics from the first track, A Way From Rage, on the Heir of the Cursed album that was released in 2025.
Commenting on this, and the film, Joseph adds: “It’s always going to be the noise she makes that’s the most beautiful, so any chance that I get to hear it, and how glad I am that record exists. My main rage is that she should have been the most famous musician; that’s what it felt was going to happen next.”
Four years after her death and that performance in the Usher Hall, and on what was Bel’s birthday, McAleer pulled out all the stops to launch the album she had been working on, using all that Bel had left us with a heartwarming gig in the Mackintosh Church in Glasgow last year.
For some, it was an opportunity to say their goodbyes. This year, Lockwood’s documentary about this incredible talent and human, wise beyond her years, is getting the deserved platform to a musician that was one of the best in Scotland.
Lockwood is a documentary filmmaker who has been making multi-award-winning television documentaries about people no longer with us for more than 20 years. This is her first feature documentary for cinematic release, and strangely she never knew Bel. She knew her sister though, who handed over her recordings and diaries, for her to create a short video to be screened at her memorial, a memorial that never happened.
Having also been mesmerised by Bel’s voice and performances, Lockwood was inspired to create this film to spread the magic of Bel’s music wider.
Joseph says: “Lou never knew Bel, and so it’s strange for her to have all of this footage. She probably knows her better than all of us, because she’s been going through all this and putting it together. It’s just really fascinating that they’ve made something that just makes perfect sense.”
Lockwood saw the footage and realised that: “People need to see this. This is phenomenal, like just her with her guitar. This cannot just disappear. The filmmaker in me watching that was thinking there’s a film here.”
So when she realised that McAleer was in a place to release Bel’s music, the LP Heir of the Cursed, Louise asked her how she felt about a film celebrating her sister’s talent too.
And from speaking with Lockwood, seemingly the music supported the narrative structure of the film.
“Music definitely feeds the structure, the lyrics feed the structure of the film,” Lockwood says, which meant there was a symbiosis between the LP being released and the film being produced.
When touching on the rationale behind the film, Lockwood says: “We tell her story, so that you get an understanding of her and where the music comes from and what’s in the music and why the music’s the way it is, so it’s kind of twofold. It’s still there, and should live on, and can live on, and will live on. My motivation for doing the documentary in the first place was to try and help platform her music.”
Having Kay come on board as a producer also made perfect sense for Lockwood. “I know Bel really respected Jackie, and like you say, I think they have an overlap creatively of just how they see the world and express things.”
Documentaries are an interesting film format.
“I feel I’ve weirdly got to know her now, though. It’s a very strange, strange thing that happens with documentaries when you dig very deep into somebody’s life.
“I talked to her quite a bit. I’m glad she’s in my life. I think she was an incredibly inspiring person.”
Joe Rattray, musician and friend to Bel, was responsible for adapting and arranging the music for the film also touched on the format of the documentary for bringing Bel back to life.
“It’s a beautiful portrait of the incredible person Bel was, which shows all facets of her; the infectious music-loving artist and the friend always up for a blether and a pint.
“At the same time, the documentary also shows the darkness within her life.”
He continues: “I’m excited for people to see and hear what a thoughtful, visceral and commanding artist Bel was. The way she could silence a room with the first line of a song and how the documentary builds to her final live performance from 2021, which is incredibly powerful to see.”
That performance is the one at the SAY Awards. The film not only touches on this but also her incredible contribution to the performed Lament For Sheku Bayoh, which was written by poet and previous Edinburgh Makar, Hannah Lavery.
This was an incredible poetic theatrical expression filmed during Covid-19 about the man murdered by police in Kirkcaldy, and was tragically affecting for Bel, triggering and adding reflection to her own experiences with Police Scotland, as a black woman.
Lavery, reflecting on the documentary and Bel, says: “There were things about her that I didn’t know that were incredible to find out about, and the performances that were part of that, it was like meeting her again.”
She adds: “I think it’s very honest about her mental health. I think it’s very honest about the challenges that she faced. I don’t think it shies away from anything. I think that’s what’s really powerful about it.”
There is so much to explore with this documentary, sensitively handled by Lockwood, noting most of the seemingly endless list of artists and creatives
interviewed on the film who all felt the magic rippling connection to Bel. Lavery sees it too.
“She lives on is what I think I got from that film; she lives on in so many of us, and those little stories, and that energy, and as Kathryn says, she was one of the best of us. It’s honest, it’s beautiful, it’s provocative, it’s challenging, and it’s humane.”
It’s challenging and it’s humane, and it’s recorded in real time, and it reflects so much of Bel, but for Joseph, “there’s a part that is going to haunt me forever”. And it feels safe to say this might be true for the rest of us.
The world premiere of Bel is screening at 9pm, 9:30pm and 10pm at the Cameo, the Filmhouse and the Cineworld as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wednesday August 19. https://www.edfilmfest.org/film/bel/
This year’s EIFF runs from August 13-19: https://www.edfilmfest.org/
