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Staring at the sun film6/11/2023 ![]() ![]() So I raised money on Kickstarter and off I went by myself to Ethiopia. Sublime Frequencies got back to me and said it was up their alley and they would be interested in distributing, but of course they would need to see what I brought back. I started writing to companies and magazines to see if anyone was interested in some photos or footage. ![]() So I didn't get it, and it was approaching the time of the festival, and I still wanted to go. I said if I get the grant we gotta go to the festival together. While I was applying, or maybe even before I applied, my boyfriend at the time sent me a link to the Festival of a Thousand Stars. Olivia Wyatt: I was applying for a Fulbright, which I did not get, to work on a project with the Dassanech tribe. VICE: What made you want to go to the Festival of a Thousand Stars in the first place? Yet it’s happening, and Olivia Wyatt was there to document how some people of this region connect to the land through sound. Not sure what makes African governments think it’ll be any different once Ethiopia’s Gide III hydroelectric dam project is completed, stanching the Omo River overflow-floods around which the inhabitants of the Lower Omo Valley have based their entire agricultural system. It’s a no-brainer: They brutally starve, contract otherwise controllable diseases, and die, while everyone discusses the politics of why it’s occurring. We’re seeing now with Somalia what happens when people in drought-harshed parts of the world who really depend on certain sources of water don’t get it. She decided go ahead anyway with her mission to document tribal music and music-related rituals, and off she went alone into the bush to take care of business. When she got there, she discovered it was canceled. Olivia Wyatt went all the way from NYC to Ethiopia to attend the Festival of a Thousand Stars, an annual event featuring music from almost all of the country’s 80 ethnic groups.
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