Ruth Leon recommends… Odds On – Dante or Die

Odds On – Dante or Die 

Click  here
 
I’m not a ‘gamer’ or a gambler. I don’t play games online. I have always thought gambling was a mugs game, even 50p each way on the Grand National strikes me as a waste of 50p. I now realise, in part because of this film, that gambling, particularly the online version of it, is a widespread problem as bad as any other addiction, such as alcohol or drugs.  Careers, marriages, whole lives can be ruined by this insidious ‘entertainment’ which can take place in your own home. Odds On is a new interactive film, which dives into the alluring and compulsive world of online gambling.

Felicity has been a hard-working GP, wife and grandmother, delicately juggling life’s demands and stresses for decades. When she retires, she begins to escape into the seductive world of Pearls of Fortune, an online game where daily struggles are washed away under the sea. From her first spin and some glorious wins, Felicity is pulled deeper into this enticing aquatic world, until she is hooked and her real life drifts further away.

Odds On takes us behind the screen and deftly explores the recent rise in online gambling, especially amongst older women. The film takes the viewer inside the protagonist’s perspective, into this increasingly popular and absorbing form of play.   Daphna Attias & Terry O’Donovan are  the writers and directors and composers are Yaniv Fridel & Ofer (OJ) Shabi.

The film features a cast of actors shot on various locations interspersed with imaginative animation. It is a hybrid between a game, a play and a gentle polemic which demonstrates how easy it is for the lines to become blurred between player and game, risk and reward and ultimately, compulsion and control.

Facilitated by Fiona Watson, the Odds On Lived Experience Creative Advisory Group is a national group of adults with experience of gambling harm who met monthly and provided feedback throughout the development of the Odds On story and script.
Read more