Footprints of Bedouins — Culture in Modern Dubai
Making the film showed me a culture that felt timeless — until you realize the world it represents is being reshaped every day.
ONE GENERATION
There is a moment in my film Bedouins of the Wind where the desert swallows the last light of day, and all that remains is the faint outline of a camel caravan moving through a dusty road. Writing and directing the film has been profound in so many ways, even to an outsider who has lived as an insider in Dubai for over 40 years.
In the stretch of a single generation, Bedouin culture has faced an extraordinary challenge — adapting to a rapidly modernizing UAE while holding onto the traditions that have defined it for centuries. The nomadic tribes who once moved with the rhythms of the desert now navigate the structured landscapes of towns and cities. Camel racing, once a test of endurance and human-animal connection, is now a high-tech, multi-million-dollar sport. And oral poetry, the heartbeat of Bedouin history, now competes with the flickering blue light of smartphones.
As I filmed more chapters of the film, it very gradually struck me how this wasn’t a story of loss — it was a story of struggle.
The struggle to ensure that progress does not erase identity. The struggle to find new ways to keep old traditions alive. The struggle of a people who refuse to let history slip through their fingers.
Stills from the documentary Bedouins of the Wind © Danish Farhan 2024
The duality of life
For centuries, the Bedouins thrived in the desert by following one simple principle: adapt or perish. They moved with the seasons, read the land, and lived in harmony with an environment that offered no guarantees. In one of the early chapters of the film, I present a montage from the 1950’s through today. Even for me, sitting with the timeline edit open, the transformation is nothing short of science-fictionesque Arakkis across centuries from Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune films.
As the nation has transformed, this way of life too has shifted with the winds. My father’s generation saw a Dubai in the 1960’s that sounds fictionally historic. Since the formation of the union in 1971, settlement programs from the government offered modern housing, infrastructure, and education to Bedouin families. Over less than two decades, cities expanded inward, while villages expanded outward. The desert, once a vast and boundless space, slowly became mapped, zoned and bordered.
AL DHAID
Much of the film is shot in one such Bedouin village-turned-city called Dhaid. Seventy-four kilometers from Dubai, less than an hour-long drive from the tourist-laden Burj Khalifa. My Bedouin friend, and protagonist of the film, Abdulaziz Al Tunaiji opened up a parallel world for me, one that remains almost invisible to most who live in or visit the country.
Therein I found a story of contrasts.
Impact vs effort
Held to much shallow critique in global media, the counter-force preserving cultural roots that define the UAE is visible only in its impact, not its efforts. Heritage villages, desert reserves, festivals and grants go largely unnoticed, but open the doors for modern audiences to what once defined the Bedouin way of life.
Glitter vs sand
This duality quickly became the central theme of the film. Abdulaziz works in Dubai, leading digital government initiatives, but every afternoon, makes his way back to his camels in the village of Dhaid. His Tesla gives way to his old Land Cruiser as he spends the rest of the day looking after and training his camels across camps and farms of his family.
Stills from the documentary Bedouins of the Wind © Danish Farhan 2024
iPad vs tent
Watching them raise their children was one of the most fascinating experiences making the film. Bedouin parenting somehow seems to expose typical tech like iPads and gaming, while also finding a way to bring the children into the sand, feeding the camels, running on open dunes, playing in tents — every single day.
Jockey vs robot
Filming countless races over four months helped me understand the transformation of the sport from community-driven tradition for honor into a globalized sport with multi-million-dirham camels bred through advanced genetics, and wireless robotic jockeys. The bond between rider and camel had always been sacred, built over generations of training and trust. Yet, despite this modern era, the heart of the sport remains soulful at its very core.
Stills from the documentary Bedouins of the Wind © Danish Farhan 2024
“We are not abandoning the desert. The desert lives inside us. The challenge is finding new ways to stay connected to it while living in a different world.”
Bu Zayed, Abdulaziz’s father reflects often on this duality. What emerged over many weeks for me, was the beginnings of an understanding of the modern Bedouin spirit. Resilience and reinvention. Tradition does not seem to be disappearing — it is somehow just evolving. I attempted to capture as much of this in the film through this lens of duality.
The duality of time
There is no denying that modernization has changed Bedouin life. But it has not erased it. Instead, from what I can see, it has forced adapting, innovating, and redefining what it means to be Bedouin in the 21st century.
Little known, hardly visible and arduous as it may be, spending months with them has revealed the process to be anything but passive. It is a daily struggle. Cultural festivals and heritage initiatives are subtly reinforcing identity and pride. The elders seem committed to passing down traditions to their Tiktok generation of grandchildren at home. Social media, digital archives, film, and poetry slams, all seem to be slowly unveiling Bedouin culture to a wider audience than ever before.
As I stood in the desert, watching the last of the sunlight slip beneath the dune, I pondered over Bu Zayed’s words, as he walked alongside his son and watched his grandchildren guide the towering camels to drink water.
Stills from the documentary Bedouins of the Wind © Danish Farhan 2024
“The challenge is not remembering our past. The challenge is carrying it forward.”
And so, the struggle continues — not to hold onto the past, but to ensure it has a future.
His generation passionately works each day to keep the wisdom of the desert alive. While he may not partake, he understands and encourages the young to use new platforms to tell old stories. Watching him check the blood levels of his beloved camel on his iPhone, while seated in a traditional majlis heated by a fire is a visceral scene.
I have now come to see heritage as no longer static — but evolving, adapting, always finding its place in the world of today. Not just for Bedouins, but for all of us.
SCENES & TEASERS
The first teaser below and short scene from the film below should give a glimpse of the everyday reality of the Bedouin world, normal for them, extraordinary to an outsider.
ABOUT THE FILM
Bedouins of the Wind is a 48-minute indie documentary film by Danish Farhan, shot on location in the village of Dhaid in the UAE, an intimate portrait of the mysterious world of Bedouin culture, through camel racing, falconry and the unseen life rooted in the desert. The protagonist Abdulaziz Al Tunaiji trains his camels for the nation’s most anticipated race, while two generations ponder whether they will be the last of the Bedouins.
More teasers and scenes on bedouinfilm.com
