12 THE REAL WAKANDA

Half of a Yellow Sun Biyi Bandele, Chimamanda Ngozi Aidchie (2014) Nigeria

Bandele, Biyi. Half of a Yellow Sun. BayView Entertainment. Nigeria 2014.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells the story of the Nigerian Civil War in her 2006 novel, Half of a Yellow Sun. Twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, are divided by the war that divides their country. Olanna falls in love with a revolutionary professor, Odenigbo, and Kainene takes over the family business. Her lover is a White Englishman. This story of two sisters serves as a metaphor for the war that tears their nation in half.

Olanna and her lover, Odenigbo, are committed to the development of Biafra a new independent nation in Africa. The story is set in the 1960s in Lagos and in the University town of Port Harcourt, in Post-Colonialist Nigeria.

The film, directed by Biyi Bandele, uses maps superimposed on scenes to show viewers where the action is happening and news footage from the era to show the war from a more objective viewpoint. The primary tool for storytelling in this film is Melodrama.

Realism is the attempt to capture events that are happening and present them on screen. Neo-Realism uses non-professional actors in realistic settings to tell narrative stories that reflect the reality of the lives of the characters. Dramatic films may tell stories set in another century or in the future. Actors wear costumes and play parts that sometimes diverge from reality. Melodrama is a genre that involves viewers in the emotional lives of characters through love, heartbreak, and family conflict. It can be a powerful tool in gaining the empathy of viewers.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a melodrama that presents the history of post-colonial Nigeria through the romance and heartbreak of two sisters.

Nollywood emerged as the first major film market in Africa, based in Lagos, Nigeria. When African filmmakers began making movies to tell African stories from a native perspective, they could take their films to festivals in Europe and the United States, but there was no distribution network for film in Africa, and no movie theatres for films to be screened.

The technology to make DVDs, digital optical disks that could record movies, was invented in 1995. DVDs could be recorded, copied and played back inexpensively and provided the first real opportunity to distribute film in Africa.

Jamie Meltzer’s 2007 documentary film, Welcome to Nollywood, follows six Nigerian filmmakers working in Lagos. In many cases their films use melodrama to tell stories for African Audiences. The films were distributed on DVDs, sold in stores and markets, and often played on community TV sets with DVD players.

Half of a Yellow Sun presents the evolution of the Nollywood film market from inexpensive movies to a film based on an international bestselling novel featuring world-renowned actors, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandiwe Newton.

In her 2009 TedTalk on The Danger of a Single Story, Adichie explains how she was raised in Post-Colonial Africa speaking English and reading British literature. She experienced her life through a European lens. She attended college in the United States, then returned to Nigeria to write.^[1]