A U.S. trailer has arrived for Rungano Nyoni’s award-winning feature debut, “I Am Not a Witch.” The drama follows Shula (Margaret Mulubwa), an eight-year-old girl who shows up unannounced in a rural Zambian village and receives a hostile welcome.
“This child is a witch,” a local alleges. “We don’t even know where she came from. She wanders around like a lost person.” Shula 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.
“You are my little witch now. You and I, we’ll work together,” Shula is told by the government official (Henry BJ Phiri) who runs the camp. We see her “[consulting] the dark spirits” during a ceremony — that’s interrupted by a cell phone ringing — and being asked “exactly when is it going to rain.” Since she’s not in fact a witch, she has no idea.
“How are you settling into your new life?” a talk show host asks the little girl. Tears form in her eyes, providing a heartbreaking answer to his question.
“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.
“These witch accusations are actually illegal in most parts of Africa, but it still continues,” Nyoni told us. “The practice of witchcraft is also illegal but it still continues. Sometimes people get very precious about it; they’re like, ‘You’re laughing at these witch accusations and that’s cultural tradition.’ We said, ‘No it’s not.’ You have to call it out for what it is, because it’s mostly aimed at women, and it always has been throughout history so we can’t wrap it in cotton wool,” she explained. “It’s misogyny — that’s all it is. I don’t know how else to express it. We have to embrace that truth before we can do something about it.”
“I Am Not a Witch” opens September 7 in New York with additional cities to follow.
