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Witch camp film is Wales Africa Film Festival highlight

BBC I Am Not A Witch publicity stillBBC
The film was based on real-life witch camps or villages in countries like Ghana

A critically-acclaimed film by a Welsh-Zambian director about an African witch camp is set to be seen by audiences in Wales.

Rungano Nyoni's feature I Am Not A Witch has already been shown at Cannes and Toronto film festivals, and received favourable reviews.

It tells the story of an eight-year-old Zambian girl accused of being a witch.

It will be a highlight of the fifth Wales Africa Film Festival, with screenings in Bangor and Cardiff.

Nyoni, who was brought up in Cardiff from the age of eight, spent a month at a witch camp in Ghana to research the film.

"They were very nonchalant about it. I got to stay there and observe without being disturbed," she said.

"I found out about them about 10 years ago. I knew about witch accusations, which happen all the time in Zambia but I wasn't sure there was such a thing as a witch camp.

"The camp is like a normal village, which had 80 older women - all accused of witchcraft who had been sent away and exiled from their own villages.

"When you're accused of being a witch, sometimes there's a trial, sometimes the accusation is enough. They have no choice but to leave or they could be killed or harmed. But to be admitted to one of these camps or villages, they had to admit to being a witch or they won't get shelter or be safe."

Rungano Nyoni wants to keep making films in both Wales and Zambia in future

For the film, Nyoni decided the idea of introducing a little girl accused of being a witch into the group of old women in her story, would see them re-thinking their lives.

"It's based on real things but I use that to shape my story. I exaggerated the real things," she said.

"What you see is a combination of my imagination and real things."

Nyoni, along with her cast and crew, travelled to Cannes in May when her film was given its world premiere as part of the prestigious Directors' Fortnight.

The low-budget feature was made with funding from organisations including Ffilm Cymru and the BFI, and became the first Zambian film to be shown at Cannes.

Read more: Life in exile in a witch camp

She said the reaction at the French film festival was "amazing".

"It's not the easiest film to watch, it's from a place that people don't know so when other people say positive things about it, it's a great thing," she added.

Fadhili Maghiya, Watch Africa: Wales Africa Film Festival coordinator, said: "Within the African film industry, it's one of the biggest films to come out of diaspora communities."

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I Am Not A Witch publicity still

WHAT THE CRITICS HAVE SAID:

  • "A pulsingly odd and strikingly original debut" - The Guardian
  • Nyoni's "ability to blend cruel humour, pointed satire and empathetic anger to produce something touched by tragic transcendence is astonishing" - Mark Kermode in The Observer.
  • "Some stunning and artful frames are nicely balanced with quiet outrage. Strikingly original" - The Times.
  • "The occasional fogginess of the tone aside, I Am Not A Witch strides confidently on to the screen and makes a distinct impression" - The Metro.
  • "A winningly original and stylistically fresh debut feature" - The Hollywood Reporter
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Nyoni was one of three filmmakers nominated for the £50,000 IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award for outstanding British talent during the London Film Festival.

She is keen to carry on making films in her "two homes" - Zambia and Wales - and is talking to Ffilm Cymru about a Welsh story "either with sci-fi or a serial killer".

She is optimistic for the Welsh film industry.

"If they invest when it's at the short film level it can only grow from there and they're doing a lot, there are schemes people can apply for," she said.

"But it takes time though, you have to push for years to see the ripple effect."

Nyoni thinks Welsh film-making is also positioned to avoid being too white and middle class.

"When I made my short film [Mwansa The Great] I made it through the It's My Shout scheme - they were trying to get people, from under-represented communities, from all parts of Wales, not just Cardiff, so I think people are already on it."

  • I Am Not A Witch (on Friday with a Q&A with Rungano Nyoni) is at Pontio Arts Centre, Bangor as part of the festival; it is also showing at Chapter in Cardiff.