Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming A Guinea Fowl, which it will release in cinemas on Friday, December 6.
The film has its UK premiere tonight (Thursday, October 10) at the BFI London Film Festival. A24 handles international sales.
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl follows a woman who stumbles across the body of her uncle in the middle of the night; then along with her cousins begins to uncover buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family. Susan Chardy and Elizabeth Chisela lead the cast. The film is in contention for the 2025 Baftas.
It is Nyoni’s second feature after 2017’s I Am Not A Witch, which won the Bafta for outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer, for Nyoni and producer Emily Morgan. It also won three Bifas, including the Best Director and Best Debut Director awards for Nyoni.
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl is produced by Tim Cole, Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe for Element Pictures. The film was developed by BBC Film, whose director Eva Yates is among the executive producers.
It joins a Picturehouse slate that includes Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl starring Pamela Anderson, Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, Alonso Ruizpalacios’ La Cocina and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope.
