NFVCB delays release of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’
Following a successful premiere of the widely celebrated movie, ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ in Lagos, fans were looking forward to watching the movie today as it was expected to be released in cinemas last Friday, across the country.
But their hopes were dashed when they thronged cinemas from various destinations only to be told on arrival that the movie would not be showing.
Grace Okafor a member of the Abuja Film Club Facebook group posted an apology of the delayed release of the movie last Friday morning. It read: “Dear Friends, I am sad to inform you that the highly anticipated release of Half of a Yellow Sun in Nigeria has been postponed to 2nd May 2014, due to delays from the producers in obtaining certification from the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board for the public release of the film. Apologies for the delay.”
Expectant fans like Adesoji Ayuba said, “This is so disappointing. I’d saved the date to come and see the movie with my friends, only for us to get here and be told that the release will be next weekend.
According to the NFVCB guidelines for film classification, the process shouldn’t take more than two weeks and where a client wants express service, a fee of one hundred thousand naira (N100, 000) is paid.
Sunday Trust made efforts to contact the NFVCB Director, Film Censorship and Classification, Mrs. Fatima Sa’adu whose office is responsible for the film’s classification. “We haven’t classified the movie yet. It’s still undergoing the process. Thanks,” she said in a text message.
Further enquiries to clarify why it was taking this long after a release date had been announced for the 25th of April, 2014, have not been responded to.
Mr. Kene Mparu, head of Filmone, which is the distributor of the film across cinemas in Nigeria told our reporter during a phone conversation that, “We submitted the movie two weeks ago and reviews are still being carried out.”
It will be recalled that the Board had invited the Nigerian High Commissioner to Canada, Ojo Maduekwe and Chairperson, House Committee on the Diaspora, Abike Dabiri to a Master class it organised at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last September. Maduekwe and Dabiri, both also attended the premiere of the movie at the same event.
In another development, a report by Daily Post, a Nigerian online newspaper said that the NFVCB had banned the movie. The story reported by Omotola Filani, read: “Sources said that the film, an adaptation of Chimamanda’s Ngozi Adichie’s novel is being stopped from getting into the market due to the parts that tend to whip up tribal sentiments, especially on issues that led to the Nigerian civil war.
“The filmmakers have further revealed that, “with the Boko Haram insurgency and the Adamawa State governor’s outburst, the NFVCB is living up to its billing.”
According to the report, “A terse statement issued by the film Producers on Friday also stated that the date for the movie premiere had been shifted. It reads, ‘regrettably, the much anticipated release of Half of a Yellow Sun has had to be postponed as a result of delays in obtaining certification from the Nigeria Film and Videos Censors Board. The attached Press Release explains further.”
To this, Mparu emphasised that the movie had not been banned but was being reviewed for release.
According to a BBC report on the issue, “A film board spokesman told AFP there were “regulatory issues” with the film but that it wasn’t “officially banned”.
The report also said: “Mr Bandele told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme that he wasn’t sure why the censorship board had delayed certification.
The Nigeria film board saw the film seven months ago, Mr Bandele said.
“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.
He denied the film was biased and stressed that he did not see how it could incite violence.
The director also said the film raised issues which Nigeria badly needed to discuss.
“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,” the report also said.