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Jeremy Curl | |
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| Occupation(s) | explorer, photographer, filmmaker, writer |
| Website | jeremycurl.com |
Jeremy Robert Patrick Curl is an Anglo-Irish explorer, writer, filmmaker and photographer.
Curl was born in Tokyo to English and Irish parents and educated at Charterhouse [1] in Surrey, where he won an art scholarship and subsequently attended the University of Utrecht [2] and Lund University, where he read History.
Curl worked briefly at the British Museum, London, in the Ancient Egyptology department alongside renowned Egyptologist Vivien Davies where he learnt to read Egyptian hieroglyphs and awakened his love for ancient and enigmatic cultures. He has travelled widely in Africa and Asia and has worked with statesmen and artists alike, from being photographer to Cuban laureate Pablo Armando Fernández to filmmaker to the President of Latvia. While in Cuba he interviewed the Castro family about Cuba's political future. Curl has exhibited his expedition photographs widely, including alongside Nelson Mandela in 2010. In 2013 he was presented with an award for excellence in travel by Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum of Dubai. [3]
Curl wrote and directed the feature film The Highest Brasil [4] [5] . A dark comedy about a fisherman trying to get to a bizarre utopia [6] , the movie was produced by Irish production company Brendan Films [7] and distributed worldwide by Freestyle Releasing [8] part of the Allen Media Group based in Los Angeles. MovieMaker named Curl one of the year's top screenwriters to watch [9] .
Promoted by the Consulate General of Ireland [10] , The Highest Brasil premiered at the 30th Austin Film Festival in 2023 where it was nominated for the Jury Award for Best Feature [11] . Released on AppleTV in 2024 the film received positive reviews. Film Ireland called the film "provocative and memorable," with Nerds That Geek saying the film was "incredibly brilliant, with powerhouse moments that will shock you." [12] HyperReal Film Club labelled The Highest Brasil a "statement of doom with a strong sense of dark comedy." [13]
In 2008 he became the first non-African to cross the Tanezrouft area of the Sahara without motorized transport [14] [15] During his time in the desert he lived with the Touareg nomads, travelling with the tribes of the Kel Ahaggar and Kel Ifoghas, witnessing their threatened lifestyle first hand. While in the Sahara he crossed the 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometres) on foot and by camel from the Hoggar mountains in Algeria to Timbuktu in Mali, reaching the city in only 50 days. He has published articles about his findings and experiences and written a basic dictionary of Tamasheq, the language of the Touareg. He was nominated for a Rolex Award for Exploration and Discovery in 2009.
In 2009 Curl spent time in Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic, a Leninist post-Soviet frozen conflict zone between the Ukraine and Moldova [16] . A socialist state that borrows from the Soviet model, Transnistria is a police state of 400,000 inhabitants. Although unrecognised as a sovereign nation by any UN country, Transnistria produces its own passports, currency and stamps and runs its own police force and army. Curl returned having photographed scenes previously unseen outside the republic.
In 2010, Curl crossed the western side of the Omo River Valley in southwest Ethiopia from Dima across tribal lands southwards towards Kenya. He passed through the western Surma tribal lands, through the lands of the Bench, Dizi and Nyangatom tribes finishing on the eastern side of the Omo in the lands of the Hamer. Curl travelled with tribal escorts and scouts, changing companions from tribe to tribe, most of whom are cut off from outside influence and still continue a very traditional way of life. Curl encountered people who had never seen white men and is one of a handful of Westerners to travel across this land on foot where tribal conflict is frequent.
2010 saw Curl travel with the Rendille tribe in northern Kenya, using camels to cross the Kaisut Plain, the Ndoto Mountains and the Karoli desert [17] . There he encountered the people of the Pokot, Samburu, Gabra and Turkana tribes. Later in the year, Curl with anthropologist Luke Glowacki from Harvard University carried out an expedition across the Danakil Depression, a volcanic desert in Ethiopia often called 'the cruellest place on Earth' and home to the Afar people. [18] It is the hottest place on Earth, with temperatures in the Danakil have been known to pass 60 degrees Celsius. Curl and Glowacki walked the ridge of volcanoes southwards, using camels to transport their water and provisions.
As a film director Curl has won the Horror Film Festival, the Netherlands (2002). He is also a published cryptographer having contributed to academic journals internationally including the journal Eidos. Curl is a keen landscape painter.
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert but spread across the rest of the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa after the spread of Islam. The English word bedouin comes from the Arabic badawī, which means "desert-dweller", and is traditionally contrasted with ḥāḍir, the term for sedentary people. Bedouin territory stretches from the vast deserts of North Africa to the rocky ones of the Middle East. They are sometimes traditionally divided into tribes, or clans, and historically share a common culture of herding camels, sheep and goats. The vast majority of Bedouins adhere to Islam, although there are some fewer numbers of Christian Bedouins present in the Fertile Crescent.
The Tuareg people are a large Berber ethnic group, traditionally nomadic pastoralists, who principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, as far as northern Nigeria.
The Ténéré Tree was a solitary acacia that was once considered the most isolated tree on Earth. It was a landmark on caravan routes through the Ténéré region of the Sahara Desert in northeast Niger, so well known that it and the Arbre Perdu to the north are the only trees to be shown on a map at a scale of 1:4,000,000. The tree is estimated to have existed for approximately 300 years until it was knocked down in 1973 by a truck driver.
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, also known as Mubarak bin Landan was a British military officer, explorer, and writer. Thesiger's travel books include Arabian Sands (1959), on his foot and camel crossing of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, and The Marsh Arabs (1964), on his time living with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq.
Agadez, formerly spelled Agadès, is the fifth largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 based on the 2012 census. The capital of the eponymous Agadez Region, the city lies in the Sahara desert, and is also the capital of Aïr, one of the traditional Tuareg–Berber federations. The historic centre of the town has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The Sahrawis, or Sahrawi people, are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Hassani Arab and Sanhaji Berber descent, as well as West African and other indigenous populations.
Musa Ag Amastan (1867–1920) was the Chief (Amenokal) of the Kel Ahaggar Tuareg from 1905 to 1920. Based in the Ahaggar, he formed part of the Kel Ghela.
Frank Cole was a Canadian filmmaker who became the first North American to cross the Sahara alone on camel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, in 1990. This voyage earned Cole an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. His documentary Life Without Death chronicled his experience and won him several awards as well as being released theatrically in Paris. Cole was murdered by bandits near Timbuktu, Mali, in late October 2000.
The Afar, also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern coast of Eritrea. The Afar speak the Afar language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. Afars are the only inhabitants of the Horn of Africa whose traditional territories border both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Charles Eugène, vicomte de Foucauld de Pontbriand,, commonly known as Charles de Foucauld, was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of a number of religious communities inspired by his example, such as the Little Brothers of Jesus.
Méhariste is a French word that roughly translates to camel cavalry. The word is most commonly used as a designation of military units.
The Reguibat is a Sahrawi tribal confederation of mixed Arab and Sanhaja Berber origins. The Reguibat speak Hassaniya Arabic, and are Arab in culture. They claim descent from Sidi Ahmed al-Reguibi, an Arab Islamic preacher from Beni Hassan who settled in Saguia el-Hamra in 1503. They also believe that they are, through him, a chorfa tribe, i.e. descendants of Muhammad. Religiously, they belong to the Maliki school of Sunni Islam.
The Oulad Delim are a Bedouin Sahrawi tribe of Arab descent which originated in Yemen. They are descended from Delim bin Hassan, who was from the Ma'qili tribe of Beni Hassan which settled in the Sahara in the 12th century. They were formerly considered of Hassane status i.e. part of the ruling warrior stratum. The Oulad Delim speak Hassaniya Arabic, a Bedouin dialect which is very close to pure classical Arabic. They traditionally live in the southern regions of Western Sahara, especially around the city of Dakhla. They are also found in Morocco in the region of Rabat, Marrakech, Sidi Kacem and El Jadida, where their ancestors received lands from the Moroccan sultans for their participation in warfare, as a Guich tribe, as well as in Mauritania in the region between Nouadhibou and Idjil.
Desert exploration is the deliberate and scientific exploration of deserts, the arid regions of the earth. It is only incidentally concerned with the culture and livelihood of native desert dwellers. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various Indigenous peoples of the Americas, were originally hunter-gatherers. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara. Today, some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.
The Sahara International Film Festival, also known as FiSahara, is an annual event which takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps, at the southwest corner of Algeria, near the border with Western Sahara. It is the only film festival in the world held in a refugee camp. The first festival was in large part organised by Peruvian film director Javier Corcuera.
Henri Lhote was a French explorer, ethnographer, and discoverer of prehistoric cave art. He is credited with the discovery of an assembly of 800 or more works of primitive art in a remote region of Algeria on the edge of the Sahara desert.
Désert is a 1980 novel written by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio, considered to be one of his breakthrough novels. It won the Académie française's Grand Prix Paul Morand in 1980.
Eamonn Gearon is an author, Arabist, and analyst. Gearon's career goal has been the development of understanding and insight between the Greater Middle East and the West. Gearon is best known for his book The Sahara: A Cultural History (2011).
The Tan-Tan Moussem is an annual gathering held since 1963 by more than thirty tribes from southern Morocco and other parts of Northwest Africa in Tan-Tan, a town in south-western Morocco. In traditional Berber culture, a moussem is "a type of annual fair with economic, cultural and social functions."
Targui is a board game published in 1988 by Jumbo Games that simulates warfare between Touareg tribes of North Africa to acquire economically strong territories.