Where the Wind Blew

World in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.

For centuries, rice farmers on the island of Bali have taken great care not to offend Dewi Danu, the water goddess who dwells in the crater lake near the peak of Batur volcano. Through an analysis of ritual, resource management practices (planting schedules, irrigation vs. conservation, etc) and social organization, anthropologist Steve Lansing and ecologist James Kremer discover the intricacy and sustainability of this ancient water management agricultural system.

The Kirghiz of Afghanistan are a group of some 2,000 pastoralists living on a bleak mountain plateau in a narrow isthmus of land between the borders of the Soviet Union and China. For nine months of the year heavy snows cover the ground, which was formerly used only by the Kirghiz for their summer pastures before the borders were closed, virtually terminating the contact of this group with other Kirghiz communities. Although the film shows dramatically the ten-day journey which lowland traders must make to reach this remote people, as well as scenes of a Kirghiz wedding and the traditional Central Asian sport of ‘buzkashi’ – demonstrating the horse-riding skills of the people – there is very little about the pastoral economy and society of the ordinary Kirghiz.

This is the story of two cultures and two technologies. An American navigator is taught the skills of navigation by a traditional Micronesian navigator on Satawal island. The American tries to navigate a boat through dangerous waters, without Western technology, while the traditional navigator watches him. The making of the film brought out interesting conflicts within the Micronesian community and in the interactions with the American navigator.