Like the cast of an African version of The Last of the Summer Wine, three friends from the Niger pursue their dream of building a windmill to irrigate their arid land. Damoure, Lam and Tallou travel to Holland on a fact-finding mission, wobbling through the lowlands on borrowed bicycles, before returning to carry out their scheme on the banks of the River Niger. Film-maker Jean Rouch first met farmers Damoure and Lam in 1954, while making his film Jaguar, and nearly 40 years later it was his description of Dutch windmills that gave rise to this story. The final credits note that the film was "lived and improvised by" the cast, an acknowledgement that Rouch's documentary technique is closer to that of a feature film than the more familiar "fly-on-the- wall" approach.