Olivia Wyatt

Sailing a Sinking Sea

Sailing a Sinking Sea is a feature-length experimental documentary exploring the culture of the Moken people of Burma and Thailand. The Moken are seafaring people and one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in Asia. Wholly reliant upon the sea, their entire belief system, education, and economic and physical development revolve around water. Sailing a Sinking Sea illuminates the Moken lifestyle through recorded traditional music, folklore and conversations with the Moken people. Through intimate and dynamic cinematography and audio recordings, Sailing a Sinking Sea weaves a visual and aural tapestry of Moken mythologies and present-day practices.

The Pierced Heart & the Machete

The Pierced Heart & The Machete is a vivid, unflinching exploration of two annual Vodou pilgrimages in Haiti. The first is for Èzili Danto, goddess of love, art and passion; worshipers from all over the world descend on the southwestern town of Ville-Bonheur to bathe in the sacred waterfall where Dantò resides. The second pilgrimage is for Dantòs' husband Ogoun, god of war, iron and healing. It takes place at the end of July in the northern town of Plaine du Nord, where practitioners bathe in a mud pool and make flamboyant sacrifices. This beautifully shot film offers disorienting yet illuminating glimpses of the contradictory and complementary aspects of these two lwa, the electrifying rites that honor them, and the intense music that accompanies these ecstatic and bloody ceremonies.