Decades of mediocre Sundance movies — and some very good ones, too — have conditioned us to expect certain things from culturally specific dramas about young people who return home from the big city and find themselves struggling to reconcile modern identity with family tradition. These characters invariably feel at odds with the heritage that forged them, only to discover something vital and profound about the past they were so quick to leave behind. At the end of the story, they return to their fast-paced lives in London or L.A. or wherever with a new sense of self-possession — one that reflects the grace and strength they’ve inherited from the generations who came before them.

Rungano Nyoni’s lucid and incandescently…

What do you hope people will feel when this film is over?

SC: You go first.

RN: I made this film because I have a lot of questions. I would like people to feel bittersweet about it. I constructed it so that you get what you want from it. I want some people to come out of it feeling depressed or disturbed and others to feel uplifted. But I want to provoke thoughts about all of the things we raise. I don’t know if you can change people, but a little bit of a thought where you pause and think about this conspiracy of silence, why we are complicit to that. Because that’s the question I’m asking myself, to be…

A guinea fowl warns others of danger. The journey of On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is about abuse being revealed and the courage it takes to confront social expectations. Events of the past are exposed gradually across the film, but it never becomes too detailed, leaving the abuse in the abstract. We are made to sympathise by the consequences we see. The film is one of community, but tradition protects the powerful. The elder characters are patronising, offering no peace nor a solution to the conflict. The film is an immersive work, taking us inside Zambian culture and accompanying the visuals with music, sobs, and overlapping conversations. Yet the film is more than just a dark story; it also has…

It never ceases to appall me how cultural orthodoxies and socio-political rigidness constantly advocate patriarchy and misogyny, and what more infuriating is how a certain section of women projects that hostility toward other women in a order to protect the slimebags or because of their inherent fears. Fittingly placed meld of rage and addressment of the issues of Zambian funeral rites, Nyoni's film renders a powefully scathing, melodic and close-eyed look at the rooted horrors and manipulations through socio-cultural custody and how these infect the abused and distressed souls; also equally compelling and maddening to see the contrariety lies within for these new generation women.

Amid the exploration of the noxious circle of abuse, the tragedy of silence and the…