Sailing A Sinking Sea
by Olivia Wyatt
|
Dear Olivia, Thank you for taking the time to share with us some of your stories. Your work is remarkable and we are really impressed by your fearlessness and talent. Thank you! Oh my gosh! Thank you so much, I appreciate it. To begin with, how do you describe your journey from the moment you decided of becoming a film/documentary director, travel the world, and tell compelling stories of people who are often misrepresented or not talked about all that much? I have always loved and studied anthropology on my own, more specifically the anthropology of religion. |
photo: courtesy of the artist |
At the University of Missouri I received a Bachelor degree in Photojournalism and a minor in History, my history studies had an emphasis on religion.
After graduating, I went and worked for Magnum Photos in their multimedia department called Magnum In Motion. I would take still images, sequence them, interview the photographers and experts, select music, add archival video and edit the elements all together to create a moving story based around the still imagery. It was by doing this work that I learned to blend my still photography and multimedia skills and thus began my metamorphoses from still photographer into filmmaker.
From the moment I made that transition I knew that I wanted to document communities on the brink of extinction. These communities generally live symbiotically with nature and have an innate wisdom and a complex understanding of Mother Earth.
For example, my most recent film, Sailing A Sinking Sea, is about the mythology of a nomadic seafaring community in Thailand and Myanmar who all survived the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. Due to their ancestral wisdom, shamanic dreams, ancient songs and myths, they predicted the tsunami weeks in advance and almost all o f them survived, while the rest of Thailand was completely surprised and devastated by the event.
With the evaporation of such communities comes a loss of all of the knowledge and beauty that is entirely unique to them. It is always my goal to capture this beauty and to make the viewer fall in love.
I don’t create films in a traditional way. I allow the viewer to wander through another culture and have his or her own personal experience.
What has been the deciding factor in your selection of the themes and places for all your documentaries: Staring into the Sun, The Pierced Heart and the Machete, Vibraquatic, Sailing a Sinking Sea?
I made Staring into the Sun in 2009 and it was released in 2010. It explores the music of 13 different Ethiopian tribes and the viewer journey’s from wedding ceremonies, where men run naked across a row of bulls to polyphonic singing wells.
Ethiopia was a natural choice for me because it has 80 diverse ethnic groups and due to the harshness of the land and the respect the government has for such diversity, the communities are living as they have been for thousands of years and they had just begun work on developing a damn in the Omo River Valley that was going to reshape life for the communities who live upon it.
I made The Pierced & The Machete in 2010 and it was released in 2011. It explores two religious pilgrimages for a male and female spirit who are married in the Voodoo pantheon. The specific spirits, also known as loa, are Ogun and Ezili Danto. These are the two spirits who were invoked during the Haitian Revolution and Haiti was the country to have the first successful slave revolt, so you can imagine how powerful and magical these two are.
I chose Haiti because I fell in love with Voodoo in college. Then I moved to New York, which has the second largest population of Haitian immigrants in the world. I started going to Voodoo ceremonies in basements on Flatbush and taking Haitian Voodoo Drumming 3 times a week from a master drummer. I was also reading as many books as I could.
I also made Vibraquatic in 2012. Vibraquatic is a series of three shorts that correspond to three tracks by Bitchin’ Bajas (Drag City). They came to me with the tracks and asked me to make visuals to correspond. Two of the films are very abstract, colorful and watery observations and one of the films is ethnographic. The ethnographic one captures a Celestial Church of Christ ceremony that took place every night in the month of October from sunset to sunrise on Rockaway Beach in New York. The Celestial Church of Christ members originate from Benin and Nigeria. The films and songs came out as a Vinyl LP/ DVD split.
In 2013, I set out to make Sailing A Sinking Sea. It was released this year. I mentioned it above, but what drew me to document this nomadic seafaring community in Thailand and Myanmar is the fact that each of them survived the tsunami that took modern scientist by surprise and several years later modernity began engulfing their community and their population began to decline.
After graduating, I went and worked for Magnum Photos in their multimedia department called Magnum In Motion. I would take still images, sequence them, interview the photographers and experts, select music, add archival video and edit the elements all together to create a moving story based around the still imagery. It was by doing this work that I learned to blend my still photography and multimedia skills and thus began my metamorphoses from still photographer into filmmaker.
From the moment I made that transition I knew that I wanted to document communities on the brink of extinction. These communities generally live symbiotically with nature and have an innate wisdom and a complex understanding of Mother Earth.
For example, my most recent film, Sailing A Sinking Sea, is about the mythology of a nomadic seafaring community in Thailand and Myanmar who all survived the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. Due to their ancestral wisdom, shamanic dreams, ancient songs and myths, they predicted the tsunami weeks in advance and almost all o f them survived, while the rest of Thailand was completely surprised and devastated by the event.
With the evaporation of such communities comes a loss of all of the knowledge and beauty that is entirely unique to them. It is always my goal to capture this beauty and to make the viewer fall in love.
I don’t create films in a traditional way. I allow the viewer to wander through another culture and have his or her own personal experience.
What has been the deciding factor in your selection of the themes and places for all your documentaries: Staring into the Sun, The Pierced Heart and the Machete, Vibraquatic, Sailing a Sinking Sea?
I made Staring into the Sun in 2009 and it was released in 2010. It explores the music of 13 different Ethiopian tribes and the viewer journey’s from wedding ceremonies, where men run naked across a row of bulls to polyphonic singing wells.
Ethiopia was a natural choice for me because it has 80 diverse ethnic groups and due to the harshness of the land and the respect the government has for such diversity, the communities are living as they have been for thousands of years and they had just begun work on developing a damn in the Omo River Valley that was going to reshape life for the communities who live upon it.
I made The Pierced & The Machete in 2010 and it was released in 2011. It explores two religious pilgrimages for a male and female spirit who are married in the Voodoo pantheon. The specific spirits, also known as loa, are Ogun and Ezili Danto. These are the two spirits who were invoked during the Haitian Revolution and Haiti was the country to have the first successful slave revolt, so you can imagine how powerful and magical these two are.
I chose Haiti because I fell in love with Voodoo in college. Then I moved to New York, which has the second largest population of Haitian immigrants in the world. I started going to Voodoo ceremonies in basements on Flatbush and taking Haitian Voodoo Drumming 3 times a week from a master drummer. I was also reading as many books as I could.
I also made Vibraquatic in 2012. Vibraquatic is a series of three shorts that correspond to three tracks by Bitchin’ Bajas (Drag City). They came to me with the tracks and asked me to make visuals to correspond. Two of the films are very abstract, colorful and watery observations and one of the films is ethnographic. The ethnographic one captures a Celestial Church of Christ ceremony that took place every night in the month of October from sunset to sunrise on Rockaway Beach in New York. The Celestial Church of Christ members originate from Benin and Nigeria. The films and songs came out as a Vinyl LP/ DVD split.
In 2013, I set out to make Sailing A Sinking Sea. It was released this year. I mentioned it above, but what drew me to document this nomadic seafaring community in Thailand and Myanmar is the fact that each of them survived the tsunami that took modern scientist by surprise and several years later modernity began engulfing their community and their population began to decline.
Sailing A Sinking Sea from olivia wyatt on Vimeo.
What do you see as a common denominator of people you have met around the world and their stories?
In all of the places that I have traveled I find that the communities have rituals and deities woven into their daily lives. Their worlds are ordered by myths and gods who determine the ways in which people interact with the nature that surrounds them. This leads to a harmonious existence with the world.
I have also found that there are many similarities between the drum patterns, ceremonial objects, libations, and offerings used within worship in Ethiopia, Haiti, and Thailand.
When did you experience some of the most touching and beautiful moments whether in Ethiopia, Haiti, Thailand, or elsewhere?
Wow this one is tricky. I honestly aim to see the beauty in every moment of life. It is very challenging for me to pick just one. I will say that while shooting my most recent film, Sailing A Sinking Sea, I was touched by the love between the Moken men and women. I have never seen a love so pure and powerful between couples anywhere else in the world. It was the kind of love everyone dreams of. I think their marriage rituals are pretty dreamy too. The man has to build a boat for his soon-to-be-wife and then go into the forest alone at night to prove he is fearless. Then he gives her a sarong and some jewelry and there is a small ceremony involving chickens and liquor.
The music accompanying your documentaries is fantastic. What’s your rule of thumb for picking the right music to go along with your projects?
Thanks so much! Most of the music I record while I am down there. I will also record songs I hear on the radio in the countries I am working in and weave those throughout the films as well. In the instance of Vibraquatic, Bitchin Bajas, composed 3 songs and came to me and asked me to create visuals to accompany those tracks. I love collaborating with them, so when I made Sailing A Sinking Sea recently I went back to them and asked them to compose a score for it. It is the only film I have ever made that has a score. Their music blends to perfectly with the Moken music and watery sounds, it really helps to further hypnotize the viewer. There is a Vinyl LP/DVD split of the film and score out on Drag City.
Where do you feel your best: is it while planning your projects, collecting material, editing, etc?
I feel the most sublime when I am out there collecting material. If I could spend the rest of my life moving from country to country capturing all of the beauty in the world I would.
Producing/planning is something I just naturally do in every aspect of my life. Editing drives me bananas, but somebody has got to do it!
What is the toughest part of being a documentary filmmaker, a remarkable storyteller, a fearless, adventurous, brilliant artist? How do you surpass obstacles that get in your way?
You are too kind! Thank you.
Honestly, finding balance in my every day life is the toughest part of being a filmmaker. I don’t think this is unique to me, most artists I know struggle with the same.
There is some force beyond me that wants me to just create, create, create, but then at the same time I have to make sure I have money to live and eat and take moments out to breath and rest and just be. I am also about to turn 24 and I would like to work towards a family. At the same time I just conceptualized the most ambitious project that I have ever imagined and it would take up the next several years of my life.
As far as obstacles, I enjoy them because they force me to let go of my initial ideas and think beyond what I had previously imagined. Often the results are much more breathtaking.
Why do you feel it is relevant to tell the stories that have grabbed your attention and are praised by critics and audiences around the world?
Modern societies worship technology and money and we feed the gods of capitalism. We have become entirely disconnected from nature. I believe that there is so much that we have to learn from all of these disappearing indigenous communities and ancient animistic and ancestral religions.
Based on what you have seen and experienced in your journeys and your work, what do you value most in other people and how do you portray that in your work?
People’s spirits enchant me more than anything else in the world. You know, the ways in which they embrace and live their lives that distinguishes them from and simultaneously connects them to every other human in the world. This is what I am always looking to capture in my films.
Who are the people who jumpstarted your desire to take the first step in your professional life and those who have inspired you to keep going even and go beyond the ordinary?
The Magnum Photos photographers always inspired me when I worked there. They dedicated their lives to projects of passion and created mind-blowing work from it. Each one of them did it in their own voice, they weren’t trying to mimic the sound of another.
I was also always a huge fan of the Sublime Frequencies, music and film collective. I begged them for an internship before I worked at Magnum, but I never heard back from them. Fast-forward 4 years later and I wrote to them pitching a film in Ethiopia with links to my short films and they wrote back saying they would distribute the film if I created it. That email was more than enough to spark my fire, it was the fuel that carried me all the way to Ethiopia by myself and allowed me to return with enough material to create Staring Into the Sun, which was a book with 136 Polaroids that had a 60 minute film and CD of field recordings inside of it. The recordings were also sold as a double vinyl LP.
Not everyone likes what I do and I am not sure if I will ever create something that appeals to people on a massive scale. But the people who do appreciate it have given me the opportunity to screen in magical places I could have never dreamed of, everywhere from the Barbican museum in London to the Hall of Ocean Life at the Museum of Natural History in New York.
One of the distributors of Sailing a Sinking Sea told me that she had seen several films last year on the Moken and nobody had told the story in the way that I had and that is why she chose to distribute it.
I think it is important to tell a story or create and piece of art in the unique way that only you can. It is the one gift we can share with the world that nobody else has the ability to do!
What’s your advice to all those who want to escape the boring and ordinary for a life of excitement and purpose such as yours?
Follow your dreams, chase them down with every ounce of your heart, and don’t be afraid of failing.
How can we know how to succeed if we never fail?
I find this quote by Sterling Hayden to be particularly inspirational:
“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?”
Where do you see yourself in ten years and do you have a game plan for the road ahead?
Ten years from now.. wow, ok let me see. I hope that by then I will have shot one of the screenplays that I have written, be the mother of two kids and be in the midst of sailing around the world and simultaneously making a documentary and writing a book.
Is all of that possible? I hope so!
In all of the places that I have traveled I find that the communities have rituals and deities woven into their daily lives. Their worlds are ordered by myths and gods who determine the ways in which people interact with the nature that surrounds them. This leads to a harmonious existence with the world.
I have also found that there are many similarities between the drum patterns, ceremonial objects, libations, and offerings used within worship in Ethiopia, Haiti, and Thailand.
When did you experience some of the most touching and beautiful moments whether in Ethiopia, Haiti, Thailand, or elsewhere?
Wow this one is tricky. I honestly aim to see the beauty in every moment of life. It is very challenging for me to pick just one. I will say that while shooting my most recent film, Sailing A Sinking Sea, I was touched by the love between the Moken men and women. I have never seen a love so pure and powerful between couples anywhere else in the world. It was the kind of love everyone dreams of. I think their marriage rituals are pretty dreamy too. The man has to build a boat for his soon-to-be-wife and then go into the forest alone at night to prove he is fearless. Then he gives her a sarong and some jewelry and there is a small ceremony involving chickens and liquor.
The music accompanying your documentaries is fantastic. What’s your rule of thumb for picking the right music to go along with your projects?
Thanks so much! Most of the music I record while I am down there. I will also record songs I hear on the radio in the countries I am working in and weave those throughout the films as well. In the instance of Vibraquatic, Bitchin Bajas, composed 3 songs and came to me and asked me to create visuals to accompany those tracks. I love collaborating with them, so when I made Sailing A Sinking Sea recently I went back to them and asked them to compose a score for it. It is the only film I have ever made that has a score. Their music blends to perfectly with the Moken music and watery sounds, it really helps to further hypnotize the viewer. There is a Vinyl LP/DVD split of the film and score out on Drag City.
Where do you feel your best: is it while planning your projects, collecting material, editing, etc?
I feel the most sublime when I am out there collecting material. If I could spend the rest of my life moving from country to country capturing all of the beauty in the world I would.
Producing/planning is something I just naturally do in every aspect of my life. Editing drives me bananas, but somebody has got to do it!
What is the toughest part of being a documentary filmmaker, a remarkable storyteller, a fearless, adventurous, brilliant artist? How do you surpass obstacles that get in your way?
You are too kind! Thank you.
Honestly, finding balance in my every day life is the toughest part of being a filmmaker. I don’t think this is unique to me, most artists I know struggle with the same.
There is some force beyond me that wants me to just create, create, create, but then at the same time I have to make sure I have money to live and eat and take moments out to breath and rest and just be. I am also about to turn 24 and I would like to work towards a family. At the same time I just conceptualized the most ambitious project that I have ever imagined and it would take up the next several years of my life.
As far as obstacles, I enjoy them because they force me to let go of my initial ideas and think beyond what I had previously imagined. Often the results are much more breathtaking.
Why do you feel it is relevant to tell the stories that have grabbed your attention and are praised by critics and audiences around the world?
Modern societies worship technology and money and we feed the gods of capitalism. We have become entirely disconnected from nature. I believe that there is so much that we have to learn from all of these disappearing indigenous communities and ancient animistic and ancestral religions.
Based on what you have seen and experienced in your journeys and your work, what do you value most in other people and how do you portray that in your work?
People’s spirits enchant me more than anything else in the world. You know, the ways in which they embrace and live their lives that distinguishes them from and simultaneously connects them to every other human in the world. This is what I am always looking to capture in my films.
Who are the people who jumpstarted your desire to take the first step in your professional life and those who have inspired you to keep going even and go beyond the ordinary?
The Magnum Photos photographers always inspired me when I worked there. They dedicated their lives to projects of passion and created mind-blowing work from it. Each one of them did it in their own voice, they weren’t trying to mimic the sound of another.
I was also always a huge fan of the Sublime Frequencies, music and film collective. I begged them for an internship before I worked at Magnum, but I never heard back from them. Fast-forward 4 years later and I wrote to them pitching a film in Ethiopia with links to my short films and they wrote back saying they would distribute the film if I created it. That email was more than enough to spark my fire, it was the fuel that carried me all the way to Ethiopia by myself and allowed me to return with enough material to create Staring Into the Sun, which was a book with 136 Polaroids that had a 60 minute film and CD of field recordings inside of it. The recordings were also sold as a double vinyl LP.
Not everyone likes what I do and I am not sure if I will ever create something that appeals to people on a massive scale. But the people who do appreciate it have given me the opportunity to screen in magical places I could have never dreamed of, everywhere from the Barbican museum in London to the Hall of Ocean Life at the Museum of Natural History in New York.
One of the distributors of Sailing a Sinking Sea told me that she had seen several films last year on the Moken and nobody had told the story in the way that I had and that is why she chose to distribute it.
I think it is important to tell a story or create and piece of art in the unique way that only you can. It is the one gift we can share with the world that nobody else has the ability to do!
What’s your advice to all those who want to escape the boring and ordinary for a life of excitement and purpose such as yours?
Follow your dreams, chase them down with every ounce of your heart, and don’t be afraid of failing.
How can we know how to succeed if we never fail?
I find this quote by Sterling Hayden to be particularly inspirational:
“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?”
Where do you see yourself in ten years and do you have a game plan for the road ahead?
Ten years from now.. wow, ok let me see. I hope that by then I will have shot one of the screenplays that I have written, be the mother of two kids and be in the midst of sailing around the world and simultaneously making a documentary and writing a book.
Is all of that possible? I hope so!