NEW HAMPSHIRE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 OFFICIAL SELECTION 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. An A24 Films release.

Cannes Film Festival – Won, Best Director
London Film Festival – Won, Special Mention
Zurich Film Festival – Won, Best International Feature
Chicago Intl. Film Festival – Won, Best Ensemble Cast

Writer-director Rungano Nyoni has a wonderful way of drawing you into a world and intriguing you from the start, gradually peeling back the layers of enigmatic characters to explore Zambian culture. -Time Out

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. -Empire

Nyoni’s embrace of the absurd, as well as her seamless use of symbolic references and the depiction of traditional rituals, showcase her impressive storytelling talent. -Boston Globe

The director rejects the ease of over-explanation and allure of an exclusively reverential tone. She reaches for honesty, and what she uncovers is at once disquieting and deeply absorbing. -Hollywood Reporter

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. -LA Times

R, 98min, English and Bemba w/ subtitles