The Olive Branch
A Summary
Logline: Inheritance issues fuel the flames in this topical exploration of truth, right and true rights. The Olive Branch chronicles the lasting effects of a Civil War plantation owner's relationship with one of his female slaves and challenges the audience to consider anew the modern day plight of their descendants.
After being contacted by a cousin seeking information for his family tree, Ella Thomas learns that the Thomas line stems from the union of Olive, a slave, and Thomas Steele, her master and owner of the still operating Steele Plantation. Our story unfolds from there.
Olive Thomas loved her husband Ben, and she cried all night when he left to fight for the South during the winter of 1861. For Ben, it was a simple choice: fight for the Confederacy and return home a free man or continue life as a slave on the plantation. Freedom and all those glorious rights listed in his nation's constitution, or eternal darkness. Ben became a soldier in the Army of the Mississippi and fought hard for his homeland, stopping only when felled by a bullet at the Battle of Shiloh. Carried home on a stretcher, Ben had but three weeks of freedom before his injuries took his life.
Nine months later a son, Shiloh, was born to Olive Thomas, and all were pleased to see this living legacy. Olive cried once more, not for her beloved Ben but for little Shiloh and his real daddy, Thomas Steele, the owner of the plantation.
In the present day, natural gas has just been discovered on the Steele plantation and John Wesley Steele couldn’t be happier. Brothers Joel and Jeff Franklin bring the well in for their Caddo Exploration Company, and Joel sets about doing his title search on the property. Tempers flare among the Steele's extended family at Thanksgiving when discussions of the forthcoming fortune threaten to unearth long buried family secrets. In the midst of his due diligence, Joel stumbles across his own evidence linking the Steeles to the Thomases, and goes in search of any surviving heirs.
When Ella shares her cousin’s discovery with her family, it is met with mixed reactions. Against the advice of her uncle Fred, a former blues legend, Ella pays a visit to the Steele family in an innocent attempt to connect with her long lost relatives. She is rebuked by patriarch John Wesley who fears she is a money grubber, out to cash in on the recent natural gas discovery. His suspicions turn real when Joel Franklin shows up the next day asking about the Thomas connection and informing Steele of his company’s decision to escrow all royalties until the exact ownership of the property in question can be resolved. As would be expected, Steele goes ballistic and files suit against the oil company to compel the release of the royalties, and the Franklin brothers are forced into court along with the Thomas family.
Joel is a lawyer by trade, but he hasn’t spent much time in court beyond the title work he does for his brother. Yet when he meets the Thomas family, Joel agrees to represent both parties in their fight against the Steeles. Joel, an amateur blues man himself, is drawn to Uncle Fred and the two bond as teacher and student of the blues.
As the court battle unfolds, John Wesley Steele tries to manipulate the evidence to bury the dirty family secret long known to his people. His daughter, Chandler, learns of the deceit and ultimately pieces things together. She then decides to help the Thomas family and the Franklin brothers make their case.
Through a series of flashbacks, the love affair between Thomas Steele and his slave, Olive, is highlighted, and his intention to leave her an inheritance is obscured by greedy relatives hell bent on not sharing any part of the family estate with the now “hired help”.
The Olive Branch, winner of eight film festival awards for screenwriting including Best Screenplay at the 2010 Urban Mediamakers Film Festival in Atlanta, is a modern day take on the classic Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings story; one that raises legal and moral questions that are beginning to find their way into the court system.
The Olive Branch is the story of the Thomas and Steele families, and their journey into the past for meaning in the present and balance in the future. It is also the story of Olive and Ben Thomas, slaves who gained their freedom at a terrific price. What became of the truth, the sense of right, and the true rights of Olive, Ben, and all the slaves who helped shape our nation's destiny?
This film project addresses those issues in today’s world, through modern legal means, in a film that will test the founding principles of this country by addressing fundamental questions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When does a human being go from being property to being a whole person in the eyes of the law? What are the rights of that person and at what point in time can they assert those rights? What is freedom if it lacks fortitude? What is the legacy of a nameless people kept in captivity for generations and then released without means into society ? What is true? What is right?... What is just?
DNA can prove lineage but what decides legacy? The Olive Branch is an innovative screenplay that will try this case in the court of public opinion and is sure to ignite an impassioned debate with the central question: Can this nation, at long last, extend the olive branch and welcome everyone into the family without reservation?