In many parts of Africa, belief in the power of witchcraft is pervasive and profoundly entrenched. In the Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world, witchcraft is considered a crime. Consequently, thousands of men, women, and children are arrested for the practice each year. In World of Witchcraft, award-winning African journalist Sorious Samura investigates a nation gripped by fear in the wake of archaic and often brutal state-mandated persecutions.

In a neighborhood where witch-hysteria has reached a tense high, an elderly woman named Jeanne is accused of witchcraft by her nephew and sentenced to three years in prison without a trial. In hundreds of similar cases each year, the accused are tortured to get them to confess, and then often killed by mobs.

The film ventures inside a courtroom to capture a witch trial as it unfolds and visits a prison where men, women, and children are confined in an insufferable space. Despite attorney arguments against the rationality of prohibiting witchcraft, convicted prisoners are often sentenced to five to ten years of imprisonment, or to death.

"Hair raising and eye opening. . . This powerful movie casts a troubling light on political and cultural dysfunction in a nation so poor that last year a United Nations report ranked it fourth from the bottom on the human-development scale."
‒Cineaste