'Will there still be nomads living in the Sahara desert in fifty years' time?' This question is put to an elderly Tuareg man in a desert camp at the beginning of 'With the Nomads', and his answer is a definite 'No.' The film is an intimate testament to this threatened way of life. A fascinated but unromantic eye contemplates the endless labour of drawing water from wells, the chore of moving across the desert by camel to find fresh pasture, the daily sheep-milking, the rough skill of a nomad butcher. There is no narrator. But Tuareg people speak to us in interviews: lifelong nomads, family elders and a highly educated city professional visiting his nomadic relatives all have their say. They talk of past and present hardships of nomadic life, their distaste for city living, and express the nomad's fierce love of liberty and open spaces. Extraordinary feats, too, break into this flow of work and conversation: an invasion of locust swarms, the castration of an angry adult camel - a job for five men - and the inspection of a well bottom by a man brave enough to dangle on 65-metre ropes held by strangers above ground. This is not an objective, anthropological study but an individual film-maker's response to the rhythms, dramas and personalities of a family, a way of life and a place.

Forms: Documentary, Feature
Genres: Avant-garde
Niches: African, Native/Aboriginal Peoples, Islamic, Third World