This video essay on Rungano Nyongi’s I Am Not a Witch by Amarachi Ngwakwe explores the film’s depiction of power through an analysis of Nyongi’s deft formal techniques. Through Nyongi’s filmmaking, according to Ngwakwe, we can understand this film as an examination of what power and imprisonment truly mean.
Rungano Nyoni
Video Essay: Magic and the Marginalized (Happy as Lazzaro and I Am Not a Witch)
Amanda Hua’s video essay analyzes the use of magic in two 2018 films: Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch and Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro. In these contexts, Hua argues, magic provides unique formal and thematic capabilities for art that depicts the condition of marginalized and oppressed peoples.