Biyi Bandele's "Half of a Yellow Sun" is the first Nigerian movie that I've seen, and it's an impressive one. The focus is the Igbo people's attempt to establish an independent country, called Biafra, sparking the Nigerian Civil War.
This speaks to a broader point about the wars that have plagued Africa's most populous country since its independence. Nigeria, like the rest of the African countries, is a creation of the colonizers. The people who lived there had only thought of themselves as members of their ethnic groups, not as members of a defined polity. Sure enough, the person who became the new leader favored his own ethnic group, which was certain to cause tensions with the others. In fact, it was often the colonizers who defined the ethnicities. For example, the Belgians labeled the Rwandans as Hutu and Tutsi, leading to the 1994 genocide there. The one saving grace of the Rwandan Genocide is that the Rwandan people no longer label each other by ethnicity, they only see each other as countrymen. This probably won't be as easy in the much larger Nigeria, which also suffers terrible corruption.
Anyway, I found this to be a very good movie. I haven't read the novel on which it's based, but I'd like to. I hope that Bandele turns out more movies.
This speaks to a broader point about the wars that have plagued Africa's most populous country since its independence. Nigeria, like the rest of the African countries, is a creation of the colonizers. The people who lived there had only thought of themselves as members of their ethnic groups, not as members of a defined polity. Sure enough, the person who became the new leader favored his own ethnic group, which was certain to cause tensions with the others. In fact, it was often the colonizers who defined the ethnicities. For example, the Belgians labeled the Rwandans as Hutu and Tutsi, leading to the 1994 genocide there. The one saving grace of the Rwandan Genocide is that the Rwandan people no longer label each other by ethnicity, they only see each other as countrymen. This probably won't be as easy in the much larger Nigeria, which also suffers terrible corruption.
Anyway, I found this to be a very good movie. I haven't read the novel on which it's based, but I'd like to. I hope that Bandele turns out more movies.