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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.

Top Cast

  • Maxwell Simba

    Maxwell Simba

    William Kamkwamba

  • Chiwetel Ejiofor

    Chiwetel Ejiofor

    Trywell Kamkwamba

  • Aïssa Maïga

    Aïssa Maïga

    Agnes Kamkwamba

  • Lily Banda

    Lily Banda

    Annie Kamkwamba

  • Joseph Marcell

    Joseph Marcell

    Chief Wembe

  • Lemogang Tsipa

    Lemogang Tsipa

    Mike Kachigunda

  • Philbert Falakeza

    Philbert Falakeza

    Gilbert Wimbe

  • Noma Dumezweni

    Noma Dumezweni

    Edith Sikelo

  • Khalani Makunje

    Khalani Makunje

    Daniel Ngwata

Overview

Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.

Rating

7.9 / 10
1,876 Reviews
4 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    7 Mar 28, 2022

    This is a great looking film depicting the abject poverty, despite their best efforts, of a subsistence farming community in Malawi. The cinematography is glorious as we follow the Kamkwamba family's struggles to educate their children and feed themselves at the same time - in the face of some pretty brutal government corruption and a severe drought. Son "William" (Maxwell Simba) is thirteen, and he has more than an average degree of nouse to him - he concludes, after studying a few engineering books in his school's library - that by cannibalising an old bike and an old ghetto-blaster, he can create a turbine mechanism that could be used to generate electrical power to pump water and help them to improve their harvest, and their lives... Chiwitel Ejiofor is his rather sceptical father, struggling under the pressures of keeping his family alive and the two have quite a forceful battle of wills as the young man attempts to convince his father that sacrificing the family's only mode of transport is a risk worth taking! I found the establishing parts of the story a bit too slow; once I understood the extent of their predicament and what the young man was trying to do, I was itching for him to succeed - and the behaviour of the father I found irritating and incongruous, slightly, with a man so keen on educating his family. That said, once it starts to focus on the project, I was astonished by the ingenuity of "William" and his young student friends as they materially change the lives of their famines for ever. It's a good film this - a try triumph of optimism over experience that I largely enjoyed watching.

Trailers & Clips

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