This is an eminent signature Nigerian culture who disappears. Biyi Bandele, director in particular of the film Half of a Yellow Sun (The Other Half of the Sun, 2013) who evokes the war in Biafra through the fate of two sisters, died on August 7 in Lagos, Nigeria. He was 54 years old.
The death of the Nigerian author was announced by his daughter Temi Banner on Facebook. “He was taken from us far too soon. He had already said so much so beautifully, and he had so much more to say.”
Biyi Bandele, born in 1967 in Nigeria, resided at United Kingdom, a country of which he was also a national. He explained that he became interested in the political life of his native country very late. But his many upheavals have crossed his work. Worn by comedians Thandiwe Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anika Noni Rose, Half of a Yellow Sun which he co-produced will also be censored in Nigeria where the civil war in Biafra remains a sensitive subject.
“He was only 14 when he began writing his first novel, published in England in 1991: ”The man who returned from the devil (Agone, 1999)’ “recalls Grasset who published, in 2009, his famous book Burma Boy under the title The Funny and Sad Story of Private Banana. “He is also the author of numerous plays for theatre, radio and television, which have led him to work with the most prestigious British companies, such as the Royal Court Theater or the Royal Shakespeare Company”.
Biyi Bandele defined himself as a storyteller and considered himself, above all, as a writer, but willingly admitted his joy at being on a set when he was filming. After his first film Half of a Yellow Sun, the American channel MTV entrusts him with the production of the first two seasons of the Nigerian version of Shugaa cult series that recounts the wanderings of young Africans.
“Biyi had an eye for stories, (he) was always passionate about his work and had a great love for Yoruba culture (his home community)“, Nigerian producer Mo Abudu, who heads the audiovisual group Ebonylife, wrote on social media. She collaborated with him on the film Fifty (2015), the first two episodes of the Blood Sisters miniseries − which was a hit on Netflix − and Elesin Oba −The King’s Horseman which he directed and for which he also wrote the screenplay. His latest production will have its world premiere in the “Special Presentation” section of the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF), in Canada, next September.
Half of a Yellow Sun also premiered at TIFF. And like Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s award-winning book that Biyi Bandele adapted for film, Elesin Oba −The King’s Horseman is also an adaptation. That of Death and the King’s Horseman, a famous anti-colonial play by the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature.
The message, posted on Biyi Bandele’s Instagram account stressing that the film Elesin Oba − The King’s Horseman was the first in Yoruba (one of the main languages spoken in Nigeria) to be presented in this category in Toronto, now appears prescient. “Death is just the beginning” is the first sentence of the post. A beautiful funeral oration for Biyi Bandele.