ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL

Rungano Nyoni
Zambia/ United Kingdom/ Ireland 2024 | Original version with English subtitles I 95 min

DO 13 NOV
20:00 CITY KINO WEDDING

One should speak no ill of the dead—in ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL this unwritten rule is put to the test by Zambian-Welsh filmmaker Rungano Nyoni.
Shula has only recently returned to her Zambian homeland after a long absence. One late evening, while driving home from a costume party, she finds a body lying on the road—it is her 50-year-old Uncle Fred.
As preparations for the multi-day funeral ceremony begin, she and her cousins gradually uncover the family’s hidden secrets, the ones their aunts would have preferred to bury along with Uncle Fred—Fred was a serial sexual offender.

ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL is a portrait of Zambia’s matriarchal society, vividly depicting the lasting trauma of sexual abuse and intergenerational estrangement. Shifting between pitch-black comedy and poignant drama, the film was awarded Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes and won the Golden Eye for Best Feature Film at the Zürich Film Festival. Rungano Nyoni previously appeared at AFRIKAMERA with her acclaimed feature film I AM NOT A WITCH in 2017.

RUNGANO NYONI was born in 1982 in Lusaka, Zambia, and emigrated as a child with her parents to Wales. She studied at the University of the Arts in London and now lives in Lisbon. Her short films THE LIST and MWANSA THE GREAT achieved significant success at international film festivals and received BAFTA nominations. Her short film LISTEN was nominated for the European Film Award in 2015 and won Best Narrative Short at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Rungano’s feature debut, I AM NOT A WITCH, tells the story of an eight-year-old girl sent to a witch camp. The film premiered at Cannes and received numerous international nominations. In 2018, Rungano won a BAFTA for this remarkable debut.