‘Special Screening: I Am Not A Witch - Rungano Nyoni’

"Rungano Nyoni’s debut feature, the story of a girl in Zambia accused of witchcraft, is comic, tragic – and captivatingly beautiful" - The Guardian  

In a traditional Zambezi village, the local population is in thrall to superstitions. Shula, a little nine-year-old girl, has been accused of witchcraft and is condemned to live in a camp of witches in the middle of the desert. Just like the other prisoners, widely photographed by curious tourists, she is dressed in a traditional adornment and attached by a ribbon to a large mast which is supposed to prevent her from stealing  and committing mischief. She is able to unravel the ribbon with the aid of a bobbin and this gives her several dozen metres of freedom. Shula is given the choice of cutting the ribbon to free herself, and to turn herself into a free goat, at the risk of ending up on a hunter’s dinner table, or remaining attached and living a witch’s life. But the girl wins the protection of a civil servant and his wife and earns respect — even if the popular fringes of society would rather see her dead. For some, she becomes a kind of divinity, of which supernatural powers capable of making it rain are expected. Indeed, rainfall is cruelly lacking in the region which increasingly resembles a desert.