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Please note, after a brief introduction by Shusha Guppy this film will 
begin promptly at 7.00pm.

POCKETSCREENING
People of the Wind (1976, 47 mins. Director, Anthony Howarth) Q&A with Mike 
Dodds (cinematographer) and Richard Tapper (SOAS). Introduced by ShushaGuppy.

A ‘lost’ film restored by Milestone Film & Video and TapeHouse, NYC.

Academy Award® Nominee: Best Documentary
Golden Globe Nominee: Best Documentary

Tuesday, March 7th, 7.00pm
Venue: J Z Young Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, Gower Street 
(University College London) WC1N
Further info about all the films, bookings and directions: 
www.pocketvisions.co.uk

There are two hundred miles of raging rivers and dangerous mountains to 
cross. There are no towns, no roads, no bridges. There is no turning back. 
The Bakhtiari migration is one of the most hazardous tests of human 
endurance known to mankind. Every year, 500,000 men, women and children - 
along with one million animals - struggle for eight grueling weeks to scale 
the massive Zagros Mountains in Iran - a range which is as high as the Alps 
and as broad as Switzerland - to reach their summer pastures. The film’s 
astonishing widescreen photography and brilliantly recorded soundtrack take 
the viewer out onto the dangerous precipices of the Zardeh Kuh mountain and 
into the icy waters of the Cholbar River.

Narrator: James Mason
Director: Anthony Howarth
Executive Producer: Elizabeth R. Rogers
Producers: Anthony Howarth & David Koff
Script: David Koff
Editor: Carolyn Hicks
Cinematographer: Mike Dodds
Sound: Ivan Sharrock
Music: G. T. Moore and Shusha Guppy
Production company: Carolyn Films
Year of production: 1976
Length in minutes: 110

The Restoration
In 1990, Milestone Film & Video acquired and restored the classic silent 
film, Grass. When it was released on video, Grass became one of the 
company’s best-selling titles and was voted one of the ten best releasesof 
the year by the New York Times and Video Magazine. At the time, many of the 
buyers of Grass asked us about a 1976 color re-make of the film, People of 
the Wind. They described it as a “lost” film and remembered it vividly.It 
was hard to believe that a film only fifteen years old could be lost, but 
it seemed to be. Thus began our search for the rights, materials and owner 
of People of the Wind, an on-and-off quest for that took many twists and 
turns over the next few years.

Just for fun, we looked up reviews of People of the Wind in the New York 
Public Library’s Performing Arts division. There was a small story in the 
New York Times by Vincent Canby which mentioned that a wealthy heiress from 
the “Chicago Bridge and Iron trust,” Elizabeth Rogers, had financed the 
film. Images of old money and eccentric widows filled our minds and we 
placed phone calls to every Elizabeth Rogers in the Chicago phonebook  to 
no avail. We asked friends and colleagues at newspapers around the country 
to search their records for any obituary of Ms. Rogers. Still nothing.
Then, by chance, we found a press kit for the film at a flea market for 
25¢. It was a bargain, because in it we found the credit: “Color by 
Deluxe.” One phone call to the owner of Deluxe, Bud Stone, was sufficient. 
Indeed, the internegative, optical soundtracks and subtitle bands were 
still held by the lab. But there was another catch. Their records showed 
that the material was being held for Crown International, a long-time 
Hollywood producer of B-movies. It seemed odd that such a company would 
hold the rights for a 1976 documentary on the Bakhtiari. A phone call to 
Scott Schwimer, senior vicepresident at Crown, proved to be a highlight of 
our search. He told us that he wasn’t aware of People of the Wind, butthat 
it could have been from an earlier regime. He asked, “Who stars in thefilm 
so I can check my database?” Our reply, “Bakhtiari nomads from the southof 
Iran,” brought gales of laughter.

Schwimer agreed that Deluxe’s records must be mistaken and sent out a 
letter that day releasing any claim by Crown on the material. It was an 
unusually kind and generous gesture that gave our search new momentum. So 
we had located the original materials, but we still needed to find out who 
owned the rights to the film. Deluxe explained that in these cases, 
permission from the producers credited on the film would suffice. Our 
search then turned to the producers: David Koff and Anthony Howarth. Pam 
Wintel of the Smithsonian’s Human Studies Film Archive, suggested that Mr. 
Koff might be living in Los Angeles. Luckily, not only was there a David 
Koff in the Los Angeles phone book, but it turned out to be the very man we 
sought! At first, Mr. Koff was a bit surprised by our inquiry, but 
volunteered his permission for our planned restoration and release of 
People of the Wind. He explained that we should contact Anthony Howarth and 
Carolyn Hicks (it seemed they had met editing People of the Wind and were 
still together). He did not know where they could be found, but suggested 
they might be somewhere in England. But first, he told us, we need to get 
permission from Ms. Rogers. When we suggested that she must be old or 
perhaps dead, we again elicited gales of laughter. Ms. Rogers, who was in 
her twenties when she produced the film, was a mother of four and quite 
alive. But again, he had no idea where she might be. He suggested 
contacting her old friends, authors Michael Arlen and Peter Matthiessen, 
and told us that she had a summerhouse on Captiva Island.

Although nothing showed up in our search of Captiva and we couldn’t get 
hold of Michael Arlen, we had had previous contact with Mr. Matthiessen 
when we released The Young One, a film based on one of his short stories. 
So we wrote to him, but he replied he hadn’t seen Ms. Rogers for years. So 
we went back to an earlier clue: Ms. Rogers’ connection with ChicagoBridge 
and Iron. Sure enough, a phone call to David Koff reminded him that she did 
have a lawyer representing her and the trust: a Chester W. Nosal of Winston 
& Strawn. We left a message for Mr. Nosal and then waited for days without 
answer, our hopes fading. But the next week a very suspicious assistant of 
Mr. Nosal returned our call. After we explained that we were a distributor 
who wanted to contract for the rights for People of the Wind, Mr. Nosal got 
on the line and gave us the long-sought-after phone number for Elizabeth 
Rogers. It had take almost five years of searching, but at last our quest 
was almost over. We called the very much alive Ms. Rogers and she 
immediately met us with kindness and enthusiasm. We told her of our long 
quest and at the mention of Peter Matthiessen, she was surprised  after 
all, she saw him every Sunday at his Buddhist ashram. This time, the 
laughter came from our end of the line.

We quickly negotiated and signed an agreement for Milestone to release 
People of the Wind. Ms. Rogers then helped us get in contact with Anthony 
Howarth’s friend and agent, Woodfin Camp, who led us to the elusive Mr. 
Howarth himself!

Next came the hard part. Deluxe kindly sent over the People of the Wind 
materials to John Allen’s restoration lab, Cinema Arts. The first 
inspection report was disturbing  the rolls of film totaled only 110 
minutes  seventeen minutes short of the original running time. We contacted 
Howarth, Koff and Rogers and were enlightened. The film had been made on 
deadline and Howarth had never been entirely happy with the 127-minute 
version. He felt that it dragged in places and the co-producers and critics 
agreed. They went back and re-edited, creating a 110-minute version which 
all agreed was superior. Strangely enough, only one print of the new 
shorter film was struck (for Howarth’s personal use) and the new version 
seems never to have shown elsewhere.

Back at Cinema Arts the materials were inspected and declared in good 
condition. But unfortunately, the optical tracks were mono and were vastly 
inferior to the $200,000 surround-sound stereo that had been made for the 
film. Luckily, Ms. Rogers still had everything from the production  over 
nineteen boxes of soundtracks, out-takes, and various odds and ends to pour 
through. In Box Numbers 7A and 7B we discovered the original 35mm full-coat 
soundtracks! All these materials were sent to the Tape House Editorial 
Company, the premiere film-to-tape lab in the country. We had decided that 
People of the Wind, an Oscar® and Golden Globe nominee for Best 
Documentary, deserved the best treatment possible. With the extremely kind 
cooperation of Mark Polyocan and Tim Spitzer of Tape House, the film was 
transferred to High Definition using the Spirit. Colorist Ron Stetler did a 
masterful transfer  the colors popped off the screen and the film never 
looked better. But when the sound for the third reel was being laid down, 
another disaster struck. Halfway through the reel, the full-coat 35mm mag 
tracks turned into optical negative. Even more mysteriously, it wasn’teven 
from the same film!

So we had to make a print of the optical track for the third reel from the 
original negative. We then sent the print to TrackWise in New York where 
they created a DAT transfer for the video master. We encountered more 
trouble when the technicians at TrackWise discovered that the film used a 
Dolby DBX application that no longer exists and the DAT would not be 
properly encoded. In desperation, we called the Hollywood headquarters of 
Todd A-O, the original producers of the soundtrack. Fortunately, they still 
had the DBX card that would properly encode the sound master and they 
generously sent it overnight to their New York branch to get the transfer 
done quickly. Todd A-O even volunteered that they had back-up sound masters 
to the original film! Unfortunately, these proved to be in mono (made for 
the 16mm release) and were for the older, longer version. However, the 
company sent them on to Milestone for preservation.

At last, with everything finally in place, Tape House transferred People of 
the Wind to High-Definition video using the restored soundtrack and 
original 35mm negative. This breathtaking film is now ready to be seen once 
again  and it only took us nine years! In the second half of 1999, a new 
35mm print will be struck and preservation materials will be made on thefilm.

Patrick Hazard
Department of Anthropology
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

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