Half of a Yellow Sun (2013)

Nigeria | 111 min. | R | BluRay | Dir. Biyi Bandele

Sisters Olanna and Kainene return home to 1960s Nigeria, where they soon diverge on different paths. As civil war breaks out, political events loom larger than their differences as they join the fight to establish an independent republic (IMDb).

"Whereas war narratives often privilege aggressive, “heroic” masculinities, women are key protagonists here. Though they are portrayed largely in the contexts of home, family, romance, marriage, and maternity, the film depicts varied configurations of African femininity: the provincial Mama and Amala; the contrasting cosmopolitan twins and their mother; the modest Aunty Ifeka, Olanna’s confidante; and the urbane Ms. Adebayo, part of Odenigbo’s prewar, transethnic intellectual coterie. Their lives are marked by the limits of domesticity and patriarchal authority, and also by the tribulations of war, private infidelities, and coerced and transactional sex. And yet they are portrayed as individuals transcending these challenges." -Jude G. Akudinobi (African Studies Review)

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