Ousmane is a Muslim living in France. Mrs. Sommers is a Christian war widow who lives on one of the British Channel Islands. Although unknown to one another and coming from different religious backgrounds, these strangers find themselves brought together in London around a shared tragedy: each has lost touch with her respective child since the day of the attacks on the London public transport of 7 July 2005, Mrs. Sommers with her daughter Jane and Ousmane with her son Ali. Together they comb the city in search of their loved ones, fused together in the hope of finding them alive.

Born near Paris in 1953, he worked as an assistant director in television until founding his own production company, named 3B. His feature film debut arrived in 1985 with Bâton Rouge. Since then, his films have included Poussières de vie (Dust of Life), Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Language Film in 1995, a nomination he earned a second time for Indigènes, one of the most viewed films in France. London River won the Silver Shell for Best Actor (Sotigui Kouyaté) at the Berlin Festival in 2009.