Deep Sleep

Deep Sleep was part of IDFA program in 2023, and withdrawn by the filmmaker. Upon the request of the filmmaker, we publish the following text as received:

"This film was one of 12 to withdraw from participation at IDFA 2023, amongst 28 total withdrawals that included moderators, jury, and others in protest at the festival's damaging denunciation of an action in solidarity with Palestine that took place on the opening night of the festival. At the time, the festival erased all information relating to the films withdrawn in protest from the website. In response to the publication of the Palestine Film Institute's 'Industry Protocol in Times of Genocide' in August 2024, and as a gesture towards transparency, IDFA reinstated the information relating to the withdrawn films in September 2024. No further accountability has been taken.”  - The Palestine Film Institute on behalf of the filmmakers, for the full statement click here

Film Synopsis

When filmmaker Basma al-Sharif was prevented from visiting Palestine for quite some time, she taught herself self-hypnosis so she could be in multiple places at once. She shot this work while in a trance. The result is a hypnotic journey, captured on Super 8 film, to the ruins of Gaza—ruins both ancient and modern, because here modern civilization also lies in rubble.

The director playfully uses disorienting stroboscopic imagery, fractures light into yellow, blue and red, and lets multiple images tumble over one another. With lively, motile camerawork she captures scenes of Malta, Athens and the Gaza Strip—of a ferry, a horse running backwards, the sun, the earth, the rocks and the sky—accompanied in the background by bell chimes and sounds of the sea. Alsharif toys with the fallibility of memory and transcends all geographic boundaries.

Al-Sharif’s videos invoke a desire for a home that perhaps never existed. If she is not allowed to travel physically, then she will take that trip in the cinema; together with the viewer, she brings about a dreamlike shift in collective perceptions.