Acclaimed novelist and filmmaker Biyi Bandele has died, his family announced inside a Facebook publish late Monday.
Bandele, 54, would be a prolific author, playwright and filmmaker whose work includes the variation of famous Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 1 / 2 of a Yellow Sun starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton.
His dying was announced inside a statement signed by his daughter Temi Bandele.
She authored, “I’m heartbroken to talk about the sudden and unpredicted dying on Sunday seventh of August in Lagos of my dad Biyi Bandele.”
“Biyi would be a prodigiously gifted author and movie-maker, in addition to a loyal friend and beloved father. He would be a storyteller to his bones, by having an unblinking perspective, singular voice and knowledge which spoke strongly through all his art, in poetry, novels, plays as well as on screen. ”
“He told tales which designed a profound impact and inspired many around the globe. His legacy will survive through his work,” she authored within the publish.
Bandele was one among the best filmmakers and storytellers of his generation.
Within an interview with CNN in 2014, he stated, “I understood I thought about being a author from the time I had been six. My father required me towards the local library. I had been 5 or 6, and that i just fell deeply in love with the books.”
Bandele increased in the little northwestern Nigerian capital of scotland- Kafanchan, Kaduna Condition, and left Nigeria at 22 after studying drama at Obafemi Awolowo College.
“I really came [to London] because I’m asked to some theater festival … within days, I’d a writer, not only to the United kingdom however in Italia as well as in France as well as in Germany,” he told CNN.
“I Then got offered employment is the literary editor of the weekly Nigerian newspaper working in london and so i had really include simply no aim of remaining.”
Soon after his arrival towards the United kingdom, his work was printed and that he received his first commission in the Royal Court Theatre where he was catapulted in to the arts.
3 years later, Bandele authored a screenplay that was selected up through the BBC, who attached a youthful rising director into it. His name was Danny Boyle.
“Dealing with Danny would be a game-changer. I wasn’t that interested at that time in really directing not I viewed Danny … it had been a pleasure dealing with him,” he stated.
Mo Abudu, founding father of Black Existence Studios and something of his lengthy time collaborators told CNN these were getting ready to debut their new film, Elesin Oba (The King’s Horsemen) in the Toronto Worldwide Film Festival (TIFF) in September.
“He am enthusiastic about Elesin Oba, much more than the other projects he’d labored up with us… and it was so excited as he learned about our selection at TIFF. I’m sad he won’t be at TIFF and the man won’t see how loved his last project was.”
Bandele also co-directed the Netflix hit Bloodstream Siblings. The streaming platform compensated tribute to him inside a Twitter publish calling his passing “a monumental loss to Nigeria’s film and inventive industry.”
“Biyi Bandele’s passing is really a monumental loss to Nigeria’s film and inventive industry. He’ll be appreciated like a powerhouse who made several of the best films from Africa. Once we mourn him, we commiserate together with his family, buddies and colleagues. May he rest in power.”
