
When Shula (Susan Chardy) returns home to Zambia and finds her uncle’s dead body on the roadside by a brothel, the last thing she wants is to mourn him. Her boisterously drunk cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) can’t stop laughing, because Uncle Fred died as he lived: a pervert. But when their aunties shame them into helping with three intense days of traditional funeral rites, the cousins must wrestle with the sanctification of a man who caused great harm in his lifetime.
Writer-director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch) was awarded a Best Director prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard for her powerful sophomore feature. Darkly humorous and occasionally surrealist, her writing is matched by razor-sharp editing and immersive sound design to expose the absurdity of the family’s over-the-top demands. The pressure cooker of the funeral is contrasted with the joys and catharsis of stolen moments between the cousins. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a defiant warning call to families who hide predators in their midst.
Best Director: Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2024
The off-kilter, absurdist vibe of the picture is enchanting, but it’s rooted in deep horror: The whole movie is about the ways that cruelty and injustice become codified.
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
Media Partner
Community Partner
Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela
Zambia/UK/Ireland
2024
In Bemba and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Eva Yates, Christian Vesper, Olivia Sleiter
Producer
Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Tim Cole
Screenwriter
Rungano Nyoni
Cinematography
David Gallego
Editor
Nathan Nugent
Production Design
Malin Lindholm
Original Music
Lucrecia Dalt

Rungano Nyoni
Rungano Nyoni is a self-taught writer and director. She was born in Lusaka, Zambia, and grew up in Wales, UK. Rungano’s debut feature I Am Not a Witch (2017) follows an eight-year-old girl who is exiled to a witch camp. The film premiered at Cannes and was nominated for numerous international awards.
Filmography: I Am Not a Witch (2017)
Photo by Gabriel Gauchet
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Teacher
In this potent thriller, English teacher Basem witnesses the murder of a teenager by a Israeli settler. While the subsequent investigation rolls slowly towards a foregone conclusion, the teacher is caught up in a parallel kidnapping case...
Bob Trevino Likes It
When her toxic, narcissistic dad cuts her out of his life, Lily Trevino looks him up on Facebook and happens across his namesake, Bob (John Leguizamo), a gentle, genial contractor who lives nearby, and who proves an altogether better dad...
The Encampments
When pro-Palestine protests took hold of Columbia last year, the filmmakers were there from the beginning. This documentary charts the mounting tensions between students and the administration, as the protests were picked up across North America.
Shepherds
Mathyas quits his marketing job in Montreal and goes to France with the romantic notion of becoming a shepherd. He's in for a rude awakening... Based on a true story, Deraspe's stirring film plays spiritual uplift off against some 3000 sheep and a donkey.
Our Lady of the Nile
Veronica and Virginia are inseparable friends at an elite Catholic boarding school, Our Lady of the Nile, but what binds them together is the very thing that separates them forever. We are in Rwanda, 1973, and tribal tensions are simmering ominously.
Faces
Ten years after his landmark debut, Shadows, John Cassavetes returned to the indie model, self-financing this wrenching portrait of the sexual mores and miseries of American middle class. Gena Rowlands is luminous as Jeannie, the film's emotional barometer.