As reported earlier, Biyi Bandele’s Half Of A Yellow Sun – a film adaptation of celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Orange Prize-winning novel of the same name – will make its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The long-awaited, much-anticipated film adaptation, Bandele’s feature film directorial debut, stars Thandie Newton, John Boyega, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anika Noni Rose, Joseph Mawle and Genevieve Nnaji. 

Described as an epic love story, here’s the official synopsis released by the film’s producers which tells us what role each starring actor will play:

… weaving together the lives of four people swept up in the turbulence of war. Olanna (Newton) and Kainene (Rose) are glamorous twins from a wealthy Nigerian family. Returning to a privileged city life in newly independent 1960s Nigeria after their expensive English education, the two women make very different choices. Olanna shocks her family by going to live with her lover, the “revolutionary professor” Odenigbo (Ejiofor) and his devoted houseboy Ugwu (Boyega) in the dusty university town of Nsukka; Kainene turns out to be a fiercely successful businesswoman when she takes over the family interests, and surprises herself when she falls in love with Richard (Mawle) an English writer. Preoccupied by their romantic entanglements, and a betrayal between the sisters, the events of their life loom larger than politics. However, they become caught up in the events of the Nigerian civil war, in which the lgbo people fought an impassioned struggle to establish Biafra an independent republic, ending in chilling violence which shocked the entire country and the world. 

The crew includes award-winning cinematographer John de Borman (An Education, The Full Monty), production designer Andrew McAlpine (BAFTA winner for The Piano), and Grammy and Ivor Novello nominated artist and composer Ben Onono and RTS award winning Composer Paul Thomson are composing original music for the film.

Half Of A Yellow Sun is a film we’ve been looking forward to all year, wondering when and where it would eventually debut, after one high profile film festival after the next, came and went, but no Half Of A Yellow Sun sightings. 

So now we look to TIFF in September.

Here’s its first trailer… finally (as an aside, 2013 should be a big year for Chiwetel Ejiofor):