ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL
In filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL, buried family secrets are unearthed when a young woman finds the body of her uncle in the middle of an empty road.
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SYNOPSIS
On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family, in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.
Director
WITH
Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri
Run Time
1 hour, 39 minutes
Released
2025
Distributor
A24
HEARING AND VISUAL ASSISTANCE
Assisted Listening
some Subtitles / Open Captions
Country
Zambia, UK, Ireland
SUBTITLES
Bemba and English with English Subtitles
RATED PG-13
for thematic material involving sexual abuse, some drug use and suggestive references
REVIEWS
“Nyoni’s brilliance is in portraying the gap between public and private, past and present, as spaces where submerged feelings awkwardly co-exist, leaving nobody able to feel truly whole.”
“Rungano Nyoni is one of the most exciting voices in cinema today and ‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ is abject proof: a disquieting, blistering examination of a family where social status trumps blood ties.”
“‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ is a magically transcendent, cunningly funny, and arresting piece of cultural commentary that puts the inequalities of tradition against the warmth community can, still, on occasions, provide.”