The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) is a Netflix drama you can watch online on iFILM, written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who also appears in the cast. Maxwell Simba plays William Kamkwamba, the real Malawian inventor whose memoir — co-written with Bryan Mealer — is the source of the film.

Malawi, 2001. A drought is draining the family farm. William's father can no longer cover school fees, so the thirteen-year-old is pulled out of class. He keeps studying anyway, slipping into the local library to work through physics and engineering textbooks he cannot afford to borrow. From a broken water pump, bicycle parts, scraps of an old tractor, and whatever junk he can find, he pieces together a windmill. It draws water to the fields. The harvest survives.

Shot on location in Malawi with Chichewa dialogue and a largely local cast, the film grounds every scene in the physical reality of subsistence farming — the soil, the weather, the weight of debt. Watch The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) online on iFILM.