On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

“Do we question the corpse?” A line uttered during a Zambian family funeral sets the tone for Rungano Nyoni’s darkly incisive exploration of silence, denial, and complicity. When Shula discovers her uncle’s body on a deserted road, the family gathers to mourn, observe tradition, and protect appearances. As rituals unfold, the film slowly reveals how grief becomes performance, and how collective refusal to speak shields long-buried harm.

Balancing deadpan humor with emotional precision, Nyoni turns the funeral into a pressure chamber where generational trauma and patriarchal authority quietly collide. The film exposes how cultural norms can demand obedience over truth, and how the unspoken can become a form of violence. Unsettling, funny, and deeply humane, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl examines what it costs to keep the peace and what it takes to finally break the silence. (Bethan Hughes)