A two-part film screening and guest lecture event at York St John University, exploring oil, poetry and/as resistance in the Niger Delta.

The Discussing Decolonisation series at York St John University continues on Friday 30th October with a special screening of the documentary feature film, 'Hope is a Word', followed by virtual Q&A with the writer and director, Maria Galliani Dyrvik, and Nigerian environmental activist and poet, Nnimmo Bassey.

'Hope is a Word' premiered at Sheffield Doc Fest in June 2026 (https://www.sheffdocfest.com/film/hope-word), and follows acclaimed poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey as he works with a new generation of writers fighting oil extraction in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta, asking whether poetry can carry a long history of resistance into the future.

The film screening and Q&A will be followed by a guest lecture from Professor Madhu Krishnan (https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/madhu-krishnan/), Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures and Director of the Centre for Black Humanities at the University of Bristol (title and abstract to follow).

The event schedule is as follows, and more information can be found below:

11.30-11.45: Welcome and opening remarks from series co-conveners (CC/201)

11.45-13.15: 'Hope is a Word' film screening (CC/201)

13.15-14.00: Virtual Q&A with Maria Galliani Dyrvik and Nnimmo Bassey (CC/201)

14.00-15.00: Interval / Comfort break (Atrium)

15.00-16.30: Guest lecture and Q&A with Prof Madhu Krishnan (DG/124)

Please note that the film and post-screening Q&A will both be in-person only for attendees, but the guest lecture will be livestreamed via MS Teams from the YSJ campus. You will have the option to select an online-only ticket for the lecture when booking a place.

Part 1: Hope is A Word

Synopsis: Nigerian poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey has spent his life fighting oil extraction. For decades, oil has poisoned the Niger Delta and brought violence and division. Seeing around him a new generation full of fears and hopes, Nnimmo invites a group of young people to write with him. Among them are Barinedum, an Ogoni writer, Odudu, a strong-minded activist, and Nnimmo’s son Ukpono, a young rapper. In the safe space of his workshops, they begin to tell their own stories through poetry, finding a way to heal and a weapon for change. After a lifetime of resistance, Nnimmo wonders: can they carry on the struggle?

Director: Maria Galliani Dyrvik

Producer: Anita Jonsterhaug Vedå (Smau Media)

Executive producers: Femi Odugbemi (Zuri24 Media) and Chiara Andrich (Ginko Film)

Running time: 82 mins

Watch the trailer here!

Speaker bios:

Nnimmo Bassey is an environmental activist, author and poet from the Niger Delta. Under Nigeria’s military regime in the 1990s, his activism led to imprisonment, and he lost friends and companions at the hand of the State and complicit corporations. Despite the sacrifices, he has remained committed to the struggle, leading major environmental organizations and receiving worldwide recognition and human rights awards.

For Nnimmo, poetry is both a tool for resistance and a form of healing. His poetry collections include We Thought It Was Oil, But It Was Blood (Kraft Books, 2002), I Will Not Dance to Your Beat (Kraft Books, 2011) and I See the Invisible (Daraja Press, 2023; Kraft Books, 2024), and he is also author of To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (Pambazuka Press, 2012) and Oil Politics: Echoes of Ecological War (Daraja Press, 2016).

Maria Galliani Dyrvik grew up between the Norwegian fjords and the Italian Alps. Working across documentary, animation, sound installations and collaborative projects, she explores how the stories we inherit about the past and the future can be reimagined together. Her films have screened at festivals including Durban International Film Festival, Interfilm Berlin and Nordisk Panorama. 'Hope is a Word' is her first documentary feature. The film premiered at Sheffield Doc Fest 2026, in the International First Feature competition.

Part 2: Guest Lecture

Madhu Krishnan is Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures and Director of the Centre for Black Humanities at the University of Bristol. Her research considers contemporary African writing in the context of transnational, world and global literary production.

To date, she has published three monographs: Contemporary African Literature in English: Global Locations, Postcolonial Identifications (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Writing Spatiality in West Africa: Colonial Legacies in the Anglophone/Francophone Novel (Boydell and Brewer, 2018) and Contingent Canons: African Literature and the Politics of Location (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Madhu was PI on a five-year project titled 'Literary Activism in sub-Saharan Africa: Commons, Publics and Networks of Practice', funded by a European Research Commission Starting Grant, which resulted in a number of outputs, inc

Description supplied by the event organiser.