A family divided for decades over one woman's extraordinary claim — and a filmmaker who suspects the real question was never whether Lena was telling the truth, but what a woman like Lena needed that story to do for her.
SEARCHING FOR LENA is a feature documentary following filmmaker Nikki Cole and her family as they investigate her grandmother Lena Denaburg's lifelong claim of an aristocratic childhood in early-1900s Odessa — a claim that has divided the family into fierce believers and equally fierce skeptics for decades.
The real question the film asks is not whether Lena was telling the truth. It is what a woman like Lena needed that story to do for her. Married off at fifteen in Winnipeg, physically abused, she orchestrated one of only four divorces granted by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1921 — the only one by a Jewish woman. She raised two children in a chicken coop, crossed the US border in pickle barrels, and rebuilt her life from nothing. Twice. She was never given an education because she was a girl. She kept the Odessa story — the opera, the ballet, the aristocracy, the maids — like armour: the only story large enough to hold who she actually was. Only problem is — the family never believed her.
The investigation takes the family from Toronto through Montreal, France, and Latvia, and eventually toward Odessa itself — a city now under daily bombardment. A newly discovered bag of Baycrest oral history interview tapes of Lena — found by a family member in July 2026, unknown to anyone until now — opens extraordinary new possibilities. At key moments, an AI recreation of Lena's own voice, built transparently from a 1986 recording, weighs in on what the family discovers — saying things the real Lena only hinted at, without the soft chuckle she always used to soften the blow.
Nikila (Nikki) Cole is an award-winning dual Canadian/American writer/producer/director with over 25 years of international experience. Her feature documentary RAY OF HOPE received a PGA Producer Mark, was In Consideration for the Academy Awards, shortlisted in five Canadian Screen Award categories, and streams on CBC Gem. Her dramatic short CATHERINE IN LOVE won the Golden Elephant Trophy at the Bangkok Movie Awards, shot on a Volume Wall as part of the DGC/Pixomondo/William F. White Virtual Production Workshop. MY FATHER, JOE won five international awards and is on Amazon Prime. THE BRIDE'S WEDDING won Best Feature Screenplay at the Jogja International Film Festival; SERPENT QUEEN won Best TV Pilot Screenplay at Oaxaca. Winner, C21 Content Canada International Co-Production Pitch Competition, TIFF 2025 (BLEEP ME!). Named Producer to Watch, MIPTV Cannes 2022 & 2023. Gemini Award winner. Selected for RDV Canada/Telefilm 'Meet the Series' Cohort (Series Mania/MIP 2021), leading to CMF/CICLIC co-development funding with French producer Virginie Lacombe. Austin Film Festival Second Rounder (THE OTHER MEDICI).
After showrunning 15+ factual series including ICE ROAD TRUCKERS and STORAGE WARS for History Channel, Netflix, CBC, BBC Kids and HGTV, she now develops scripted features including OPHELIA, a four-territory international co-production with scientific consultant Dr. Emilio Emini (former Merck Research Laboratories) and institutional support from the Mark Wainberg Centre for Viral Diseases, McGill University. Through her charity Tonembee Foundation (tonembee.com), she has spent 20 years educating girls and boys and introducing solar energy to a remote Kenyan village. Member: DGC, CMPA AI Committee, Alliance of Women Directors, Film Fatales, WIFT LA & Toronto. Dual Canadian/American citizen.
