The Biafra Story in Film: An Appraisal of Biyi Bandele’s <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i>

Abstract

Diverse scholarly and artistic expressions in book form and documentary films have been employed to document the story of the  Nigerian Civil War by persons who were actively or peripherally involved in the events surrounding it. Attempts at telling the story have  been coloured by different factors like military, political, ethno religious and egocentric considerations. This study examined the war's  account through Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun, a filmic adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s novel with the same title. Using  qualitative content analysis method and grounded on the Trauma and Cinema Theory, the study examined the film’s representation of  historical facts and how such perspectives may have been received. The film's reception by the Nigerian cinema audience and  government through the cinema regulatory authority were examined. The study concluded that the suppression of critical historical facts  in the film through censorship represents the unwillingness of the government to allow for citizen conversation, which the film  could provoke and which may lead to proper closure and possibly lay to rest, the ghost of the fratricidal war that almost ripped the  country apart between July 1967 and January 1970.