{"id":14144,"date":"2014-04-28T06:20:35","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T06:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigeria-delays-biafran-war-film\/"},"modified":"2014-04-28T06:20:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T06:20:33","slug":"nigeria-delays-biafran-war-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigeria-delays-biafran-war-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria Delays Biafran War Film"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{Director Biyi Bandele (l) and author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recently attended the premiere in Lagos}<\/p>\n

{{Nigeria’s film board has delayed the release of Half of a Yellow Sun, a film about the Biafran war.}}<\/p>\n

The film, by Nigerian-born British director Biyi Bandele, was set to open in Nigerian cinemas on Friday.<\/p>\n

A film board spokesman told media there were “regulatory issues” with the film but that it wasn’t “officially banned”.<\/p>\n

The film is based on a novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the 1967-70 civil war, in which more than a million people died.<\/p>\n

Reporters say that more than 40 years after the end of the war, the subject remains extremely sensitive in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Some fear the film, which is seen as sympathetic to the Biafran separatist cause, could stoke up ethnic tensions, he says.<\/p>\n

The book was released in Nigeria but with the country’s high rates of illiteracy, a film is likely to get more attention.<\/p>\n

Mr Bandele told media that he wasn’t sure why the censorship board had delayed certification.<\/p>\n

The Nigeria film board saw the film seven months ago, Mr Bandele said.<\/p>\n

“What’s frustrating is we have not received a formal letter from the board telling us we’ve been banned, or that we’ve not been banned,” he added.<\/p>\n

He denied the film was biased and stressed that he did not see how it could incite violence.<\/p>\n

The director also said the film raised issues which Nigeria badly needed to discuss.<\/p>\n

“One of the reasons Nigeria is more divided today – 40 years after the end of the war – than it was before the war started, is because we have refused to talk about the elephant in the room.”<\/p>\n

The film features Twelve Years a Slave actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and Crash star Thandie Newton.<\/p>\n

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{Director Biyi Bandele (l) and author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recently attended the premiere in Lagos} {{Nigeria’s film board has delayed the release of Half of a Yellow Sun, a film about the Biafran war.}} The film, by Nigerian-born British director Biyi Bandele, was set to open in Nigerian cinemas on Friday. A film board spokesman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051906,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14144.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14144.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14144.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14144"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14144"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}