The Wind on the Sand

First released in 1972, The Wind on the Sand reveals the yearnings of a group of middle-class Europeans in colonial Africa, illuminating, with acumen and grace, the trying years leading up to World War II from a new perspective.

After losing her family, young Lisa moves to Africa where she finds protection—first from her elderly aunt Ablina, then from her cousin Philip and his wife Malvina, Jews whose home is “a ‘den’ of anti-fascism for intellectuals of all nationalities.” When she is welcomed into Sans Souci, the mansion of a German couple, her destiny changes again. The mansion, dreamy and shrouded in mysteries, hosts another guest: the indecipherable painter Lottie, who serves as the pivot of stories and secrets.

The devastation of the end of an era parallels a young woman’s loss of innocence.