Ten years ago, when Jean Queyrat traveled for the first time to the valley of the Omo, this inaccessible region in southern Ethiopia was known only to a handful of paleontologists, anthropologists and intrepid voyagers. Time there seemed to have stood still for millennia. With the passing of time, he has witnessed a staggering change which deserves reflection. Roads were built, and tourists began to beat a path to a region which today appears to offer the height of exoticism.
The Omo peoples understood what they stood to gain from the ambiguous curiosity of people who travel thousands of miles by plane and car, and pay a fortune to come and gawp at them. Since we want them to be savages, well then they’ll be savages with a capital “S”, so they don’t hesitate to pile on the colorful or garish touches. Because that’s what the public like.
Not only are the great majority of tourists none the wiser, but what’s more, they’d be furious if anyone tore down a dream they’d paid so much to see. Such is the rich comedy of dupes which now plays itself out in the Omo.
Queyrat plans to make a 52-minute film as a travel diary, written in the first person, in the tradition of travel writers like Nicolas Bouvier or Bruce Chatwin, which will lead him to meet up with the people he has encountered
Direction: Jean Queyrat
Production: ZED