Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun and the Postcolonial Discourse on Nigeria’s Civil War Experience

Shouket Ahmad Tilwani; Azeez Akinwumi Sesan

doi:10.5195/cinej.2026.760

Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun and the Postcolonial Discourse on Nigeria’s Civil War Experience

Authors

Shouket Ahmad Tilwani Al-Kharj Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8608-5134
Azeez Akinwumi Sesan Department of Theatre Arts, Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8217-7157

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2026.760

Keywords:

Half of a Yellow Sun, Biyi Bandele, Nigerian Civil War, Biafra, Nollywood, postcolonial cinema, postwar trauma, cultural memory

Abstract

Nollywood films have been responding to critical sociological, historical and national issues militating against sustainable national cohesion and unity. One of the film texts that have narrated a significant event in Nigerian history is Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Using the qualitative approaches of literature review and textual analysis, the article critiques the film. While adopting the tenets of postcolonial theory and deconstruction, the article establishes the situations of supplementation and melancholy as they affect socio-cognitive interpretations of the civil war across the ethnic groups in the country. The film text underlines the fact that Nigerians, across all the ethnic nationalities, still suffer from the postcolonial and postwar melancholy precipitated by the events before, during and after the war. Through the characterization and plot of the film text, the article shows that Nigerians now suffer from intrusion/re-experiencing as well as negative cognitions and mood, which have been affecting oneness, unity and national cohesion of the country. Decades after the suspension of the war at the warfronts, the major actors of the war (Nigerian government and Biafra) still engage in a cold war, psychologically and ideologically as is evident in the national political scene.

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Published

2026-10-15

How to Cite

Tilwani, S. A., & Sesan, A. A. (2026). Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun and the Postcolonial Discourse on Nigeria’s Civil War Experience. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 14(2), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2026.760

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Issue

Vol. 14 No. 2 (2026): Fall

Section

Articles

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