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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

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Summary

Drama based on a true story, starring Maxwell Simba and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Prevented from attending school when his family can no longer afford the fees, Malawian teenager William Kamkwamba finds a way to continue using the library and educating himself. When famine begins to devastate his community, a determined William works to engineer a solution in the form of a windmill.

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IMDB

Review

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Jeremy Aspinall

Chiwetel Ejiofor won the best actor Bafta for 12 Years a Slave and has chosen a similarly stirring, against-the-odds true story for his directorial debut. The star has also adapted William Kamkwamba's memoir that's set in a small village in Malawi in 2001 when the 13-year-old William overcame school expulsion and parental mistrust to create a crop-saving wind turbine with the aid of a library book and a bicycle dynamo. Maxwell Simba (in his debut) carries the focal role of William with conviction and some aplomb, while Ejiofor gives a supporting performance of controlled power as the boy's embattled father, Trywell. The film adopts an episodic narrative structure - using the chapter titles of sowing, growing, harvest, hunger and wind - to illustrate the arduous agrarian existence experienced by Trywell and his fellow villagers. Constantly at the mercy of a climate that can parch or flood the land at any given moment, the farmers are also hamstrung by corrupt government officials (who are not shy at handing out beatings) and rapacious capitalism (tobacco industry-induced deforestation). It's sensitively directed and Ejiofor strives to keep things real with much of the dialogue in Chichewa. It's no bad thing to have Mike Leigh's regular cameraman Dick Pope (Mr Turner, Peterloo) on board to provide a vivid and visceral authenticity. Meanwhile, Antonio Pinto's subtle score gently underpins a story that avoids lazy lapses into sentimentality. The result is a genuinely life-affirming tale that displays a refreshingly unpatronising view of the challenges facing communities in 21st-century Africa and acts as a ringing endorsement of the importance of education.

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7.6/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameWilliam Kamkwamba Maxwell SimbaTrywell KamkwambaChiwetel EjioforAgnes KamkwambaAïssa MaïgaAnnie KamkwambaLily BandaMike KachigundaLemogang TsipaChief WimbeJoseph MarcellEdith SikeloNoma DumezweniCharityKelvin Maxwell Ngoma

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Crew

rolenameDirectorChiwetel Ejiofor

Details

Theatrical distributor

Netflix

Released on

2019-03-01

Languages

English | Arabic | Nyanja

Guidance

Some swearing

Formats

Colour

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