David Oyelowo, nominated for a Golden Globe Award, is executive producing a BBC limited series about Biafra alongside the newly established UK indie Argo Films and Fremantle.
Richard Johns’ Argo Films will team up with David Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon Productions and Fremantle for their film Biafra. Laurence Olivier Award-winning writer Bola Agbaje is penning the script with Ngozi Onwurah engaged to direct. Johns, Oyelowo, Isimeme Ibazebo of Turnover Films, and Christian Vesper, head of global drama at Fremantle, are producing the limited series.
Biafra is a period drama that spans the 1967–1970 Biafra War and the present day between Nigeria and the United Kingdom. The show looks at the largely forgotten events in Britain and America’s common history through the eyes of a young Black British woman. The character-driven narratives in Biafra explore universal issues like identity, family, and belonging.
David Oyelowo, who is of Nigerian heritage, spoke about the project, calling Biafra “one of my most treasured projects” and noting that the series satisfies his ambition to “see African stories told at the highest level.”
Johns, who just a week ago established Agro Films, said, “Britain and Nigeria have a hugely important, multi-layered, and historical relationship, one that is very much alive today. With this series, we are setting ourselves the mission of telling a compelling story about discovering and reclaiming a lost identity and a forgotten history.”