On Becoming A Guinea Fowl

A middle-aged man’s sudden death brings about a reckoning with the past for an extended Zambian family in director Rungano Nyoni’s scalding drama. Balancing domestic realism and expressionistic absurdity with precision and constant surprise, Nyoni, in the follow-up to her feature debut, “I Am Not a Witch,” commandingly delineates the contours of a community caught between tradition and modernity. Nyoni’s film centers on Shula, whose stoical response to finding her uncle’s body on the street in the middle of the night hints at the many emotional fissures that will lead to the exposure of difficult truths long repressed. The film’s compositional rigor, inventive sound design, and unexpected narrative turns and digressions confirm Nyoni as a distinctive new voice in international cinema. Winner of the Best Director prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. – New York Film Festival

A fierce and darkly funny portrait of one woman’s strength in the face of crisis, Nyoni’s award-winning second feature proves her to be a distinctive filmmaker blazing a unique trail.

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