Golden Globe Award-nominated film star David Oyelowo is executively producing BBC limited series about Biafra with the newly launched UK indie Argo Films and Fremantle.
David Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon Productions and Fremantle will collaborate with Richard Johns’, Argo films.
Bola Agbaje, a Laurence Olivier Award-winning scriptwriter is writing alongside Ngozi Onwurah who is directing the limited series being produced by Oyelowo, Johns, Isimeme Ibazebo of Turnover Films and Christian Vesper, Fremantle president of global drama.
Set in Nigeria and the UK with the story developing across the 1967-70 Biafra War and the present day, the film runs through a young Black British woman’s lenses.
It explores the most forgotten events in the shared history of both countries. Biafra knits themes of identity, self-pursuit and ancestry.
David Oyelowo with roots in Nigeria described Biafra as “one of my most treasured projects,” stating that the series satisfies his desire to “see African stories told at the highest level.”
In his keen reaction, Johns who launched Argo Films a week ago said, “Britain and Nigeria have a hugely important, multi-layered, and historic relationship, one that is very much alive today. With this series, we are setting ourselves the mission of telling an incredibly powerful story about discovering and reclaiming a lost identity and a forgotten history.”