HALF OF A YELLOW SUN World Cinema

Nigerian-born British playwright Biyi Bandele translates Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s powerful prize-winning novel of the same name into an emotional drama that gives voice to personal stories of the indignities and atrocities suffered during the Nigerian Civil War. Set in the late ’60s, the film’s main characters, Olanna (Thandie Newton), her sister Kainene (Anika Noni Rose) and Olanna’s revolutionary boyfriend, Odenigbo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), are forced to make bold choices in order to navigate the complex social terrain mapped out by Nigeria’s ethnic, political and religious divide, and survive. In a time when traditional life is at odds with the modern intellectual and economic aspirations of young Nigerians, the growing cultural divide between rural and urban life brings new challenges to a generation whose dreams would propel the country into the future. HALF OF A YELLOW SUN gives us a rare and unique glimpse at this struggle for self-determination.