Genevieve Nnaji Cut From Half of a Yellow Sun Movie?

Reports coming out of Nollywood indicate that the adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie's award winning book, Half of a Yellow Sun, will be screened at the 2013 FESPACO film festival, opening in Ouagadougou, February 23. That means it may be reaching the cinemas as soon as summer, if not before.

The feature film has a cast that includes Thandie Newton [who remembers the furor?], John Boyega, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dominic Cooper, Anika Noni Rose, and Joseph Mawle. Nigerians involved in the project are Biyi Bandele, directing, Cobhams Asuquo and Keziah Jones, both composing original music for the film, and Genevieve Nnaji with small acting part. Most of that small role may have ended on the editing/cutting room floor.

Like I've learned since I started doing movie reviews, all adapted films have three stages - there's the book, then the script, and finally the director's vision. So anything can happen to change around a story during those stages. If you've read the book, you'll know there's a heartbreaking love story involved, but I'm not sure which part Genevieve is playing.


E247Mag writes that we'll still see Genevieve in a scene or two, I hope it is more than that.

But whatever happens, I'm sure she, as well as the other Nigerian crew that took part in the Calabar production must have learnt a lot by being part of the making of the Half of a Yellow Sun movie. Some scenes from the shooting in Nigeria - of Olanna and Odenigbo's wedding - are below.

Thandie Newton just looks like a Nigerian here :)

Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Olanna and Odenigbo (Half of a Yellow Sun)

This is the official synopsis released by the film's producers:

... weaving together the lives of four people swept up in the turbulence of war. Olanna (Newton) and Kainene (Rose) are glamorous twins from a wealthy Nigerian family. Returning to a privileged city life in newly independent 1960s Nigeria after their expensive English education, the two women make very different choices. Olanna shocks her family by going to live with her lover, the “revolutionary professor” Odenigbo (Ejiofor) and his devoted houseboy Ugwu (Boyega) in the dusty university town of Nsukka; Kainene turns out to be a fiercely successful businesswoman when she takes over the family interests, and surprises herself when she falls in love with Richard (Mawle) an English writer. Preoccupied by their romantic entanglements, and a betrayal between the sisters, the events of their life loom larger than politics. However, they become caught up in the events of the Nigerian civil war, in which the lgbo people fought an impassioned struggle to establish Biafra an independent republic, ending in chilling violence which shocked the entire country and the world.

I can't wait!