“I Am Not a Witch” may be heading to the Academy Awards. Rungano Nyoni’s debut feature has been named as the UK’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Oscars, Broadway World confirms. The award-winning satire will hit theaters stateside September 7 in New York.
Set in Zambia, “I Am Not a Witch” tells the story of Shula (Maggie Mulubwa), an eight-year-old girl accused of witchcraft in a rural village. The child is put on trial, found guilty of being a witch, and sentenced to life on a state-run witch camp. There, she’s given a choice: embrace her life as a witch — and accept being tethered to a long white ribbon that keeps her in captivity — or become a goat. She chooses the former.
“I Am Not a Witch” made its world premiere at Cannes in 2017. The pic won a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer and received a nod for Best International Film at the Indie Spirit Awards.
In an interview with us, Nyoni contrasted how male and female directors are perceived and treated. She mentioned that her partner — who is a white, male filmmaker — noticed the differences. “He said, ‘You have to say things about 10 times,'” she recalled. “That’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. Saying things 10 times, and even then people ignore it, or pretend they didn’t understand you, or they pretend you’re not articulate.”
The writer-director elaborated, “I really pushed for [this] film, and pushing on a guy is rewarded, like ‘He’s so ambitious, that guy.’ With me, it’s ‘She’s so difficult. She keeps asking for this and there’s no time.’ And I have a right to, because I’m fighting for my film like every director. If you fight, you have to do it really carefully [as a woman],” she observed.
“My partner can solve problems in a different way,” Nyoni explained. “When I was trying to solve problems, he said ‘I don’t understand why you don’t just tell them to fuck off.’ I can’t tell people to fuck off. I don’t have that card, because they take it differently. I have to negotiate, talk them out, and say it in a way that’s not too heavy-handed. I tried saying fuck off before, people just shut down. They just don’t want to hear it — you become the enemy, and then you’re not on a team anymore. We’re in a different world, but he noticed it because he was around me a lot, and I would give people instructions, I would say ‘I want it blue.’ Then they do it in red. Why is it red? And he said, ‘I was there when you told them blue. Should I say something?’ I said ‘No, you can’t. It’s my fight. This is me, and I want it blue.’ And then ‘Oh, she’s so difficult.’ So it’s like all these differences. He noticed and I noticed. Everything has to be checked, nothing is taken for granted. You can’t just say something and it’s done, it’s checked and checked, that’s the exhausting thing.”
Nyoni’s previous credits include shorts “Listen” and “Z1.”
Ildikó Enyedi’s “On Body and Soul” was the sole woman-directed film nominated in the best foreign-language category this year.
