Radio Sunrise, the novel by award-winning author Anietie Isong has been adapted into film and production will begin in early 2022. Two leading production companies in Nigeria – Royal Arts Academy and Closer Pictures – will handle the production which will be shot in Lagos State and the Niger Delta region.
“I am very excited about the screen adaption of my first novel. Our film industry has come a long way, so I have no doubt the talented cast and crew will do justice to the script,” Anietie Isong says of the project.
Radio Sunrise was listed for the 9mobile Prize for Literature in 2018 and won the 2018 Mckitterick Prize. It was first published in the UK in 2017, and has been republished in Nigeria by Narrative Landscape Press.
The novel tackles the commodification of journalism, and is set against the backdrop of the militancy in the Niger Delta.
Royal Arts Academy and Closer Pictures have produced several movies like Weekend Getaway, I’ll Take My Chances, The Best Men, Falling, Lost in London, The Choir Master’s Wife, Ayamma and several others.
“I am delighted to be working with my brother on the adaptation of his award-winning novel. The film will feature some of Nigeria’s most celebrated actors, and we have decided to film it in Lagos and the Niger Delta, where the novel is set. I am confident the movie will resonate well with viewers not only in Nigeria, but across the world,” Emem Isong Misodi, CEO of Royal Arts Academy says.
“The first time I read the book, I thought ‘this would make a great movie’. So when Anietie started talking about adaptation, I was only too pleased. I loved the book and I’m certain film lovers all over the world will love the adaptation. It has everything; comedy, romance and social issues. We will work with the very best hands to put together a masterpiece,” Uduak Isong Oguamanam, CEO of Closer Pictures says.
