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Deep Sleep

Name: Deep Sleep
Director: Basma Alsharif
Released: 2014
Duration: 13 min

Representation Score

9.1/10

Excellent

2014

Director

Basma Alsharif

Runtime

13 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Basma Alsharif’s *Deep Sleep* is a sophisticated experimental documentary that prioritizes post-colonial perspectives. By moving between Athens, Malta, and the Gaza Strip, the film disrupts the dominant Western, objective viewpoint. The work succeeds by centering underrepresented geographies through a highly individualized lens. It uses personal, psychological states to critique broader systemic and geopolitical realities, offering a nuanced view of the Mediterranean experience. While the film excels in cultural and racial representation, its highly subjective, experimental nature may make specific representations less clear.

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Category Breakdown

Does Deep Sleep have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film uses self-hypnosis and performance to break away from traditional, linear storytelling. This focus on internal, subjective experiences aligns with LGBTQ+ temporalities that reject conventional, structured narratives.

How does Deep Sleep portray gender?

Good

As a solo-driven performance piece by a female artist, the work emphasizes the female perspective and intellect. It elevates the female viewpoint by using the artist's consciousness as the main lens.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Deep Sleep?

Excellent

The film provides a significant role in driving the story to the Palestinian experience by focusing on the Gaza Strip. It resists Western ethnographic clichés by framing Gaza through artistic performance rather than news-cycle lenses.

How does Deep Sleep represent religion and culture?

Excellent

Deeply rooted in post-colonial critique, the film challenges Western definitions of progress. It prioritizes a non-Western, subjective morality that views traditional Western institutional stability as fragmented.

Does Deep Sleep include disability representation?

Fair

While no physical disability is explicitly depicted, self-hypnosis serves as a metaphor for altered states of consciousness. The film explores internal landscapes and psychological or sensory subjectivity.

Present on Screen

Centers Palestinian ability to act and the complex realities of the Gaza Strip.
Challenges Western-centric views through a deep post-colonial critique.
Elevates the female perspective by centering the artist's own consciousness and ability to act.
Resists traditional ethnographic clichés by using experimental, performance-based storytelling.

Limited or Absent

Lacks explicit depictions of physical disability or specific character identities.
The highly subjective, experimental nature may obscure clear representations of specific social identities.

Official Synopsis

A transfixing performance film in which artist Basma Alsharif shoots footage in Athens, Malta and the "post-civilization" of the Gaza Strip while under self-hypnosis.

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