African Film Archive

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

2024 — Rungano Nyoni — Zambia, United Kingdom, Ireland

feature · drama · present

Rungano Nyoni's second feature opens with Shula finding her uncle's body on an empty Zambian road at night, then follows her middle-class family's funeral rites as they surface a buried secret, and won Nyoni the Best Director prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2024, jointly awarded with Roberto Minervini.

Fun fact: The title refers to the guinea fowl's alarm call, a bird known for shrieking to warn its group of danger, used here as a metaphor for whistleblowing on family secrets.

Notes: Zambia/UK/Ireland co-production; Nyoni is a Zambian filmmaker. Distributed by A24 in the US; dialogue in English and Bemba. Best Director, Un Certain Regard, was shared jointly with Roberto Minervini at Cannes 2024.

Verification: verified · Sources: [1] [2] [3]

Poster source: Festival de Cannes