A series of films from all over the world about our astonishing planet and the people who live on it.
The prize-winning film (Trento International Film Festival 1967, Melbourne Film Festival 1968, International Addis Ababa Film Festival 1968) of one man's love for the desert and its people.
In 1946 the explorer Wilfred Thesiger crossed the desert known as 'The Empty Quarter' - an incredible journey through lands where no European had travelled before.
"A beautiful film" (Maurice Wiggin, Sunday Times)
"A truly marvellous colour film" (Stanley Reynolds, The Guardian)
(Colour)
A classic of desert exploration at 8.15
"A Cloud gathers, the rain falls, men live; the cloud disperses without rain, and men and animals die. In the deserts of southern Arabia there is no rhythm of the seasons, no rise and fall of sap, but empty wastes where only the changing temperature marks the passage of the years."
So begins Arabian Sands, one of the classics of desert literature. The author is Wilfred Thesiger, who follows in that peculiarly British tradition of desert explorers established by Burton, Doughty, Lawrence, Bertram Thomas, and St. John Philby.
For five years Thesiger shared the life of the Bedu in southern Arabia, living and travelling in the most desolate and arid deserts in the world-the Rub al Khali, or "The Empty Quarter."
Tonight's award-winning World About Us film is a reconstruction of Thesiger's wanderings.
The film sets out to capture the spirit of the desert and its people. But many lovers of desolate places are saddened that the deserts of Arabia are changing fast. Today the silence of the sands is broken by the drilling rig, and the Bedu has lost his livelihood, for no one needs his camels.
As Thesiger himself says: "Other people will go to Arabia, but they will move about in cars and keep in touch with the outside world by wireless. They will bring back, I am sure, results that are far more interesting than mine, but they will, I believe, never know the spirit of the land or the greatness of its people."
