Kamkwamba movie wins international film awards

While he remains relatively unknown at home, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba continues to make headlines on the international scene.

William and the Windmill

, a film that documents his rise to fame, continues to make strides on the international film scene.

Two weeks after it was presented with the Best Documentary Feature Award at the Flyway Film Festival in Wisconsin, USA, William and the Windmill last week walked away with the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Asheville Cinema Festival held at the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina.

The Asheville Cinema Festival (ACF) is a natural progression for the society. Successfully completing its second festival in 2012, ACF screened high quality films, a popular shorts programme and educational documentaries.

Last month, William and the Windmill also won Best Documentary at the Flyway Film Festival and has screened, to great acclaim, at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, The Film Society of Minneapolis/Saint Paul, The International Festival of Documentary Films on Food and Agricultural Sciences and at the 27th Leeds International Festival among other events.

This inspiring story, crafted with much affection, won the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Award at the recent SXSW film festival.

William and the Windmill

traces the life of a young Malawian William Kamkwamba who teaches himself to build a power-generating windmill from junk parts, successfully rescuing his family from poverty and famine.

Directed and produced by Ben Nabors, and shot across several continents, the William and the Windmill documents William’s journey beginning with the TEDGlobal Conference in Arusha, Tanzania, through his college attendance in the United States in 2011.

The original documentary short, Moving Windmills, directed by Scott Thrift, produced by Ben Nabors and executive produced by Tom Rielly, debuted at the worldwide live film festival Pangea Day in May, 2008.

There, the short film received the North American Filmmaker’s Award from Participant Media, producers of An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck, Food, Inc., Charlie Wilson’s War and North Country. In addition, the film won recognition from the Cinema Prosperité competition, sponsored by the Seven Fund.

William and the Windmill

shares William’s inspiring and complex story with audiences worldwide, sparking initiatives to improve their difficult circumstances.

What if a whole nation, a whole continent—the whole world—were exposed to his dramatic accomplishments?

As with all great stories, William’s is quickly growing to engage and involve people around the world. Although William’s story is rooted in Africa and the problems facing his local community, the film looks at issues that affect us all: education, food production, energy, cultural transition and international development.

William, co-author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, is one of four recipients of the 2010 GO Ingenuity Award, a prize awarded by the Santa Monica–based non-profit GO Campaign to inventors, artists, and makers to promote the sharing of their innovations and skills with marginalized youth in developing nations.

With the grant, he held workshops for youth in his home village, Wimbe in Kasungu, teaching them how to make windmills and repair water pumps, both of which proved to be transformative skills for this young African leader.

In 2007 William entered an intensive two-year academic program combining the Cambridge University A-levels curriculum with leadership, entrepreneurship, and African studies at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is currently pursuing an engineering degree at Dartmouth College, in the USA.

William, now 26, has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and appeared on numerous networks programmes, including ABC’s Good Morning America, National Public Radio and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show.

He also has addressed audiences multiple times on TED, at the 2008 World Economic Forum and at schools and universities around the world.