Watch the Trailer for Elesin Oba, Biyi Bandele’s Adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s Play

This is the trailer for Elesin Oba (The King’s Horseman), a forthcoming Netflix film adapted from Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s acclaimed 1975 play Death and the King’s Horseman.

Elesin Oba is the final feature by the Nigerian director and writer Biyi Bandele, who died in August 2022. Here is a synopsis from IMDb:

Inspired by true life events, in the Oyo Empire in the 1940’s, Elesin Oba, the king’s chief horseman, succumbs to the lure of beauty and sexual desire on the very evening he is set to die in order to fulfil his lifelong debt of ritual suicide to accompany the dead Alaafin to the realm of the ancestors, he derails from a very important generational and spiritual transaction.

This sets in motion a series of catastrophic consequences, in a spell-binding film of emotions, humour, and tragic role reversals that puts ancient beliefs and customs on trial in an ever increasingly post-modern and Western world.

The film, produced by EbonyLife Studios, will premiere in September 2022, at the Toronto International Film Festival, and will later appear on Netflix.