I Am Not a Witch (2017)

There’s a lovely scene towards the end of this film where the young “Shula” is secreted inside what looks like a papier-mâché prop from “Five Nights at Freddy’s” where the tourists approach her to discover she is a witch! That rather sums up the approach taken to this eight year old girl by a Zambian society that can’t quite decide whether she is to be burned at the stake or to be commercially exploited by the state. Her predicament all starts when she is tried for witchcraft in a rural court and sentenced to be sent to a camp populated by loads of other witches. Rather than bars and fences, though, this regime makes it’s inmates tie ribbons to themselves and forewarns that should they remove them, they will be turned into a goat! As the story proceeds we face, with her, the sometimes quite ridiculously presented double-standards of a society that is striving to advance in many ways (especially if there are some Kwanza or eggs to be traded) whilst swathes of the traditional population are steeped in fearful superstition. We get a glimpse of a society that is still very structured in terms of age and sex and that adds both to the fun of the film and to it’s sense of the striving for societal progress in the face of many who simply see no need for it, and Maggie Mulubwa’s leading performance is really quite engaging throughout. Vivaldi, too? Well I wasn’t quite so sold on that but then I suppose it helps to highlight a narrative that is full of anachronisms that are sometimes more appreciable than at other times. It’s a bit rough around the edges and not always the most cohesively put together, but it’s quirkiness and the strong effort from Mulubwa wake it well worth ninety minutes.