Portal:African cinema/Selected film/43

Inmates at the Tindaanzee witch camp, Ghana

I Am Not a Witch is a 2017 drama film written and directed by Welsh-Zambian director Rungano Nyoni in her feature debut film. It was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Nyoni and producer Emily Morgan at the 71st British Academy Film Awards and was selected as the British entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards,

The story centers around Shula (Maggie Mulubwa), an 8-year-old girl who is deemed a witch and sent to a witch camp. Writer-director Nyoni was inspired by actual stories of witchcraft accusations in Zambia. In her research for the film, she traveled to Ghana and spent time in one of the world's oldest witch camps, observing their daily life and rituals.  "I actually stayed in a [witch camp]. They said I was the first foreigner to do that, which is quite amazing. I read loads of research on witch camps. I stayed there to see what it was like to just live there."

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 78 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100, based on 19 critics. The Guardian's film critic called I am not a Witch "comic, tragic – and captivatingly beautiful."