The North Wind

This group portrait links the lives of several inhabitants of villages in North Bali, the birthplace of filmmaker Kusuma Widjaja Putu. When a cow is sacrificed during the celebration of Prophet Mohammed's birth, the butcher explains that according to his faith, the killing should be painless. He ordered his sharp knife from the blacksmith, whom we encounter in his workshop in a neighboring village. The blacksmith's son is specialized in metal spurs for cockfights, which are very popular in this region. We also meet a puppeteer, who graces a Hindu ceremony with his shadow puppets. By way of cricket fights we make our way back to the illegal cockfight and the gamblers watching it. Starting as a lively sketch of local customs, \i The North Wind\i0 gradually changes to expose the grimmer economic side of life in these parts. "Fixing" a fight by purposely allowing a cock to lose offers a chance to escape from poverty, but an honest man who works hard doesn't even earn a dollar a day. Putu graduated from the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in 1994 and worked for a TV station in Jakarta until 2006.