Sublime Frequencies Project Sudan:
Expedition Sudan:
Sudan is to western eyes and ears an unexplored cultural giant in terms of music, ceremony and art. This coming year in January, there will be a historic referendum to split the country into 3 different republics. The Sublime Frequencies label is hoping to document many facets of this amazing cultural juggernaut in the horn of Africa as a unified country. This will be possibly the last time that the political boundaries will hold this much diversity in culture, religion, and language.
The aim and scope of the expedition will involve gathering of information historical and contemporary. There will be interviews conducted with musicians and historians about the rich musical past of Sudan. There will be recordings made with various contemporary musicians and recordings that have spanned the last 40 years of popular and classical Sudanese music. We hope to gather cassettes, radio recordings and other cultural ephemera for research purposes. We aim to film and record as much diversity as possible, from the Nubian Islamic north to the Christian and Animist south.
The end result will produce:
Feature film that will be released on DVD by Sublime Frequencies.
3 or 4 short films that refine some of the elements of the expedition.
3 or 4 audio CDs of various genres of music, both historical and contemporary.
One or possibly two photo books documenting the astounding diversity of the Sudanese people and landscape throughout the country.
Funding for this project will be used for the following:
Transportation costs: airline tickets to Sudan/overland travel throughout the country: $3000+
Accommodations throughout Sudan for two months: $1,500+
Visa applications/photo permits: $400
Payment to various musicians/tribes for recording/filming: $4000+
We are only asking to help subsidize some of the expenses. There will be many other expenses that Sublime Frequencies will be paying for beyond the amount that is being asked for.
SUBLIME FREQUENCIES, http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/, is a collective of explorers dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers via film and video, field recordings, radio and short wave transmissions, international folk and pop music, sound anomalies, and other forms of human and natural expression not documented sufficiently through all channels of academic research, the modern recording industry, media, or corporate foundations. SUBLIME FREQUENCIES is focused on an aesthetic of extra-geography and soulful experience inspired by music and culture, world travel, research, with an unflinching methodology that continues to inspire all involved.
Hisham Mayet is a founding member and co-owner of the Sublime Frequencies label. His work with the SF has been prolific and inspired. His many musical discoveries include introducing the legendary guitar bands from the Sahara; Group Doueh, Group Inerane, and Group Bombino. His numerous films for the label have been redefining the nature of ethnographic film and they continue to provoke, amaze and inspire.
Hisham Mayet filmography:
Jemaa El Fna: Morocco's Rendezvous of the Dead
Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya
ISAN: Folk and Pop Music of Northeast Thailand
NIGER: Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel- http://www.youtube.com/watch...
Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway- http://www.youtube.com/watch...
Palace of the Winds -http://www.youtube.com/watch...
Land of the Songhai
and many others unreleased....
Olivia Wyatt is the most recent member of the Sublime Frequencies collective. She just completed her first feature-length film and photography book, Staring into the Sun, about tribal music in Ethiopia that was funded entirely by kickstarter in 2009 and is being distributed by Sublime Frequencies this fall. She is formally trained in still photography, but worked for the past 5 years as a multimedia producer at Magnum In Motion
(http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/) at Magnum Photos. She also co-produced a children's television show and has created several short documentaries and animations alongside Staring into the Sun.
Olivia Wyatt Filmography:
Seeking The Spirit- http://vimeo.com/7086163
Staring into the Sun- http://vimeo.com/9468566
Nepal's Maoist (Magnum In Motion Piece- photography by Jonas Bendiksen, audio interviews and editing by Olivia ) http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/nepal
Project location: Sudan
