“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” is a 2019 biographical drama film based on the true story of William Kamkwamba, a young Malawian who built a wind turbine to help save his family and community from famine.
William Kamkwamba grew up in rural Malawi, in southeastern Africa. In 2001, his region was struck by a severe famine caused by drought and flooding, which devastated crops and left his family and community facing starvation. Due to the economic hardship, William was forced to drop out of school because his family could no longer afford the fees. Undeterred, he continued teaching himself using library books, and eventually, drawing on diagrams he found in a physics textbook, he built a functioning windmill out of scrap materials — bicycle parts, PVC pipe, and materials scavenged from a local junkyard — to generate electricity and power a water pump for irrigation, helping his family’s farm survive drought conditions.
William later co-wrote a memoir about his experience, also titled “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” (2009), with journalist Bryan Mealer, which became an international bestseller and brought his story to a global audience.
The 2019 film adaptation was written and directed by British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, marking his feature directorial debut. Ejiofor also stars in the film as William’s father, Trywell Kamkwamba, while newcomer Maxwell Simba plays William. The film was produced by Netflix and shot on location in Malawi, with dialogue partly in Chichewa, one of Malawi’s main languages, alongside English.
The film was well received critically, praised particularly for its authentic setting, strong performances, and its grounded, unsentimental treatment of poverty, resilience, and ingenuity, without falling into “white savior” narrative tropes common to some films about Africa — notably, the story centers entirely on African characters and their own agency.
William Kamkwamba went on to study at African Leadership Academy and later Dartmouth College in the U.S., and has become an internationally recognized advocate for renewable energy, education access, and innovation in the developing world, including giving talks at TED and other major platforms.