A lowly driver finds the body of her deceased uncle lying on the road. Her father, an energetic and boisterous man, is happy to hear her concerns, as long as she gives him a fiscal donation. Then there are two of her cousins, drowning themselves in the windmills of memory, their bodies receding to the internal wounds. This is the ground from which On Becoming a Guinea Fowl flourishes, fleshing out a Zambian family drama in crystalline, cabalistic strokes.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is largely centred on Shula (Susan Chardy), who is forced to subscribe to tradition and mourn for an uncle who caused her personal harm. She does what she can to appease her family – a line of aunties stand outside her door – but the guilt that causes her to remember a video from her childhood, an educational programme on African animals a la guinea fowls, is also the fuel that causes her to sympathise with Uncle Fred’s widow; a young woman many of her in-laws blame for the sudden death of her husband.

The material is bold, brash and inventive. It takes a fine actress to grasp the fine nuances – the family is aware of Uncle Fred’s “indiscretions”, but choose to look the other way during his funeral. Chardy is more than capable of rising to the challenge. Shula cloaks herself in bitterness, boredom and ennui, taking the time out of her busy schedule to collect her cousin Bupe, a young, angsty adolescent who is in no state to join her clan in sorrow (for there is much howling at the domicile). Shula discovers a video of a relative confessing to their uncle’s “recreational activities”, which has been felt by many women in the dynasty. Fuelled by indignation, Shula decides to take action, only to discover that her parents want no part in her crusade.

Writer/director Rungano Nyoni utilises a number of dazzlingly inventive interpolations in order to express Shula’s pain. When Shula uncovers the corpse at the opening, she pictures her younger self peering over the body. When Shula takes a drive back from the hospital, she recalls Bupe’s words with agile, audiographic fashion. More pertinently, the screen – and Shula’s mind – takes on the form of a children’s animation; an animalistic howl, or cri de coeur. Shula’s internal digressions manifests in a different way to her mother and aunts who demand complete bodily control, a dance of sorts, to salute their deceased sibling. Shula asks her matriarch if she remembers a conversation they had together when she was younger, but the vacancy is swiftly made apparent between them.

Cinema is a visceral mode of communication, which might explain Nyoni’s choice to expose the funeral processions in a series of wide shots, quick cuts, inserts and voiceovers. In one almost static shot, Shula’s father wanders aimlessly in a pool of strangers, before spotting his daughter high above him on a stairwell. The distance showcases the gap that has grown between them over the years; a device that is in keeping with some of the styles favoured by Orson Welles in his dissertation on loneliness, particularly in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1942). Shula seems most at ease with Nsansa and Bumpe; together they make a triumvirate of women affected by a lineage of dominant male figures who subject women to silence.

Despite her aspirations, Shula never fails to offer her father the money he will most likely squander, just as she happily complies whenever an uncle requests a plate of dinner at the gathering. The more time she spends with her cousins, both of them victims to a shared uncle, the greater the urge is to call them out on their actions. And yet the history extends beyond her control, to the point that she would rather imitate the sound of a guinea fowl than strike back like a jungle lion.

In an almost Hinduistic moment, Shula, Bupe and Nsansa join together in a bed, their lives intertwined by one long gestating secret. What should be a devastating moment is lightened by the fact that no matter how their parents feel about traditions, this trio can fight it out as one singular movement. Like Nyoni’s equally spectacular I Am Not A Witch (2017), On Becoming a Guinea Fowl espouses the virtues of the community over the individual, which gives the characters and audiences hope for a collective future.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 77th Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. Also showing in the 58th edition of Karlovy Vary.