After a seven-year absence, British-Zambian filmmaker Rungano Nyoni has returned to feature filmmaking with her surreal and darkly funny sophomore effort On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.
Set in the Zambian capital Lusaka, the film follows the thirtysomething Shula (Susan Chardy), who is traveling home from a costume party when she discovers her uncle Fred’s dead body lying on a roadside. As funeral proceedings begin, she and her cousins discover long-buried family secrets that shake their understanding of themselves and each other.
Guinea Fowl debuted at Cannes, like Nyoni’s 2017 feature, I Am Not a Witch. That film catapulted Nyoni into the rare status of rising British auteur. The buzz, she says, critically, was in part thanks to the film dropping at the height of an industry-wide “diversity drive” where people were “pushing to see other narratives from Britain.”
“I was riding on some kind of wave when everyone had all these great intentions, and then those intentions sort of evaporated after a little bit,” she told Deadline. Almost a decade later, Guinea Fowl opens in an entirely different political and cultural environment.
“I’m really just lucky this was made,” Nyoni says of Guinea Fowl. “I thought nobody would want to make it.”
Picturehouse began the film’s UK rollout late last year while A24 will release the film stateside from March 7. Below, Nyoni speaks further about the film’s production, the difficulties of shooting in Africa with UK money, and why it’s so difficult to release an African film in Africa.
DEADLINE: The film is about to be released in the UK. How are you feeling?
RUNGANO NYONI: I’m a little nervous, but I’m grateful the film will be in cinemas. It’s such a niche film that I thought they would probably just give up and put it on Netflix. I don’t mind Netflix as such. It’s just that I always want a cinema release, even if only three people will watch the film, which is what’s gonna happen.
DEADLINE: Why do you say that?
NYONI: I don’t know. I always expect that. I just feel like it’s super niche. There are so many films that it’s remarkable that films ever get made and distributed. I never think that my films are particularly audience-facing. At least my first two.
DEADLINE: What strikes me about this film, like you’re maybe suggesting, is that it’s an arthouse film…
NYONI: But then really, what is an arthouse film?
DEADLINE: Precisely. And what strikes me is that this film is niche but it is also hilarious. There is a lot of humor that could appeal to wide audiences. I could see it blowing up on a streamer like Netflix thanks to word of mouth, in contrast to being screened at places like Picturehouse and only really being targeted to cinephiles.
NYONI: I just thought it was depressing. Who wants to go to see a film in the Bemba language about a funeral with this dark subject matter? But this is just my personality. I always think the worst and then you’re pleasantly surprised if something different happens. I’m just lucky this was made in the first instance because I thought nobody would want to make it. I was a bit precious about this project, so when I discussed it with my agent, we only sent it to one producer. And I said if he rejects me, we can send it to one more. I don’t want everyone to reject me simultaneously because I had that with I’m Not A Witch. You had lots of people saying ‘Yeah, it’s nice, but nah.’ I didn’t want to repeat the same thing.
DEADLINE: Was that producer Ed Guiney?
NYONI: Yeah.
DEADLINE: And he immediately said yes?
NYONI: Yeah they said this looks good and they could try and find funding. He was very chill and believed he could find the money for it. The same thing happened with I’m Not A Witch. All the rejection came when I was looking for a producer. But when the financier came on board it all came together very quickly.
DEADLINE: I remember you giving a shoutout to the people who rejected your first film during your BAFTA acceptance speech in 2018. That was hilarious. Do you know that has become a meme?
NYONI: I wasn’t prepared at all. And when I’m not prepared diarrhea just comes out of my mouth. I know everyone says this, but really we were at the back of the room. I’d been to the BAFTAs before with my short films and it’s usually all about seating placement, so I thought I wouldn’t win. I thought I could just get drunk. So it was a shock. I thought Lady Macbeth had it.
DEADLINE: I told some friends of mine that I thought ‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ was one of the funniest films of the year. But when I explained the plot they thought I was crazy. So I wondered what your screenplays look like because a lot of the comedy is in where the camera is placed or the tone of the delivery. And how do you go about explaining that to your actors? How do you get them to be so funny in these traumatic scenes?
NYONI: You get funny people. I try and make the script funny because you need it for finance. You need to pitch the tone, but I always find people funnier than me. So, for this one, Elizabeth [Chisela], who plays Nsansa, is just the funniest person in real life. You don’t need to do anything to manipulate it. She is just from another world. So she makes things funny without trying. But I never tell them I want to make a funny film. I do say I don’t want you to be earnest. If it starts getting a bit too serious I rethink things because I start to feel like I’m preaching. I generally just put the actors in the situation. That helps tease out some of the absurd things.
DEADLINE: You were raised in Wales?
NYONI: Yes, Cardiff.
DEADLINE: It’s rare for a European filmmaker of African heritage to go back home and make films. Why have you started that way?
NYONI: I ask myself this all the time because I get frustrated. It’s more difficult to get financing and it’s always a difficult shoot. When I’m working I always say to myself, God it would be much easier to shoot this in the UK. I think it has to do with the fact that I romanticize Zambia. I still have this yearning for it. When you’re in the UK, you feel like you know everything and you can’t add anything to it cinematically. Also, I just feel somehow blocked in the UK. I have a lot of half ideas that never go anywhere that are set in Cardiff. But somehow when I set the story in Zambia, I write more. It’s a pragmatic thing. Also, maybe it’s the fact that I want to work with comedy. And Zambia has more of a space to do that because we’re more direct and cutting. Shooting this film I said to myself that I definitely will not do another film in Zambia. But I’m already going back. It’s early days but I might be going back.
DEADLINE: How did you feel after ‘I Am Not A Witch’ blew up? I guess you became, quite quickly, one of the leading faces of a new generation.
NYONI: I didn’t think about it that way. I don’t feel that way. I watched an interview with Ridley Scott and he said when making films you’re always starting over. He said he always has to re-pitch himself to financiers. But he’s Ridley Scott. I feel the same way now making my second film. You don’t feel that acclaim. You just feel like a small cog in the wheel. I look back on that time fondly. I remember being a bit overwhelmed and having some distrust about it. I was fortunate, and I think I came at the right time because there was a diversity drive where people were pushing to see other narratives from Britain. I was riding on some kind of wave when everyone had all these great intentions, and then those intentions sort of evaporated after a little bit.
DEADLINE: Has ‘Guinea Fowl’ screened in Zambia?
NYONI: Yeah, they showed it for one night during a festival.
DEADLINE: What’s the theatrical situation there? Will it get further screenings?
NYONI: We’re supposed to have an African distributor. I don’t know this distributor and I don’t think they’re going to be interested in Zambia. No one’s ever interested. It’s such a small market. We even offered as the local producers to distribute it ourselves, but they won’t let us do that. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think that one night is probably all we’re going to get. Most people will probably just see it when it’s sold to Netflix at some point, which is sad. I’ve had this conversation many times with African filmmakers from across the diaspora, but the distributors just aren’t interested. Africa is not a market for them unless it’s Nigeria or South Africa. Outside of that, it’s just not on their radar and they don’t even want to put the effort in.
DEADLINE: What do people in Zambia think about you?
NYONI: Depends on who you ask. There’s one colleague I worked with closely on set. He became my right-hand man and did multiple jobs. One day he turned to me and said ‘I’m glad I never listened to anyone when they told me not to work with you.’ I said, I’m sorry what? I’m not on social media, so I avoid all the carnage. I just don’t have a sense of these things. But you do hear murmurs. People just think you’re privileged because you’re British. They don’t realize the fights we’re fighting in Britain. They think you’ve got some sort of lucky break. I’m the equivalent of the white dude. So whatever criticism comes from that, you have to accept it.
DEADLINE: You’re often lumped into a group with filmmakers like Mati Diop to signal what people describe as a renaissance in African cinema. I always think that’s an odd phrase. I’m not so sure what it means. I think people who say that are actually talking about the proximity certain African filmmakers now have to the West. What do you think about being included in that bunch?
NYONI: Yes. This also goes back to why people perceive you as privileged. I’m careful when I do interviews to make sure people don’t refer to me as the first person to do anything because they’re obsessed with that. It’s always the sales agents describing it as the first Zambian film to do ‘X’. I always tell them I’m not the first so stop saying that. There have been many more before me. And I think it’s true, it’s this proximity to Europeanness or Westerners. That’s why this conversation about diversity in film is really only about Britain and the U.S. because everywhere else films are being made by lots of Black filmmakers. I see them all the time on M-Net. If films don’t exist in proximity to Hollywood or Britain people think they don’t exist. No, I don’t think there’s renaissance. There have been so many filmmakers before me.
DEADLINE: You mentioned projects in Zambia and Botswana. When you’re done with the Guinea Fowl releases are you heading straight into those.
NYONI: Yes, so I’m living in Zambia now and there’s another local filmmaker who has been writing a project for some time. She lost her director and asked my partner to direct it. But I’m thinking of co-directing. It’s still early days. I will definitely co-write. It’s set in Zambia amongst a super wealthy family. I’m interested in that world of total wealth in Zambia. That 1% of the country is really white. I’m interested in a white world in Zambia. I just find that fascinating. The project in Botswana is something I’ve been wanting to do now for a few years. It’s a sci-fi film and I want it done properly, so I’m waiting until I can get something made on a larger scale.