A Zambian Fairy Tale: Rungano Nyoni Discusses Her Debut „I Am Not a Witch“

A Zambian Fairy Tale: Rungano Nyoni Discusses Her Debut „I Am Not a Witch“ on Notebook

Here’s an interesting short interview with Rungano Nyoni about her singular, strange witch-hunt fairy tale »I Am Not A Witch« (for MUBI Notebook).

»I wanted to make it a fairy tale because I found a really good Zambian way of saying the story, without making it about Zambia. I grew up on fairy tales. I’ve always wanted to do this, actually. In a way, I was trying to get away­—perhaps as a first-time filmmaker this is a bit of a cliché—I was trying to get away from ›the arc.‹ It’s always ›the arc, arc, arc arc,‹ and I was trying to do something different. I was trying to do something that I grew up with, which is that my family used to tell me fairy tales and they were really particular. Fairy tales in general are very strange, but Zambian ones mix genres. They’re for kids, but they’re really violent, and they’re funny, and they mix magic realism. All of these things I wanted to take for my film. They are really musical. I was trying to do that.«

Make sure not to miss its Leipzig premiere at GEGENkino 2018: Luru Kino in der Spinnerei, 12th April, 10pm.