Biyi Bandele to Direct Wole Soyinka’s Play

Nigerian award winning novelist, Biyi Bandele is set to direct EbonyLife and Netflix’s film adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’.

The film will be set as a period piece and will follow the plotline of Soyinka’s play.

Confirming production, EbonyLife boss Mo Abudu wrote on Instagram:

“We started with Castle & Castle 2, we then went on to Chief Daddy 2, then recently announced Blood Sisters and yesterday, we started principal photography on something very dear and special- Death and the King’s Horseman.

“Death and the King’s Horseman is a play by Professor Wole Soyinka based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during the colonial era: the horseman of a Yoruba king was prevented from committing ritual suicide by the colonial authorities.

“It has been a lot of work bringing this particular project to life because it is a project piece set in Nigeria in the 1940s.”

While the film’s cast is yet to be unveiled, Abudu confirmed that the new film is co-produced by Heidi Uys, Judith Audu, Quinty Pillay, Adeola Osunkujo and James Amuta. The Director of Photography is award-winning cinematographer Lance Gewer (‘Tsotsi’)

Bandele is also a UK-based Nigerian writer of fiction, theatre, journalism, television, film and radio, and a filmmaker. He directed Chimamanda Adichie’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ back in 2013.

Pulse/Stephanie Ingbian/Hauwa Abu