OUROBOROS by Basma Alsharif

Basma Alsharif is an Artist/Filmmaker of Palestinian origin.
Born 1983, Kuwait.

Basma Alsharif is from here and nowhere. Born in Kuwait, she was raised between France and the US, while, through her family, she maintained a strong connection to the Gaza Strip.

Since receiving a Master of Fine Arts in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, she developed her practice between Cairo, Beirut, Sharjah, Amman, and the Gaza Strip.

Basma's work centers on the human condition in relation to shifting geopolitical landscapes, natural environments and history.

She works in cinema, photography and installation; major exhibitions include: the Whitney Biennial, the Palais de Tokyo, the New Museum, the Jerusalem Show, Yamagata Documentary Film Festival, the Berlinale, the Sharjah Biennial, Videobrasil, and Manifesta 8.

She won a Jury prize at the Sharjah Biennial, the Fundacion Marcelino Botin Award, and the LOOP Fair Prize.
 

"With its experimental narrative—whose central character embarks on a journey to shed his pain, only to experience it anew through an undetermined time-space continuum that is alternatively lush and beautiful, haunting and despairing, fraught with physical and historical ruin and uncertain predicaments—the film adheres to a fragmentary, dreamily desultory, aesthetically immersive structure. It is a heady mix of essayistic musings, stunning landscape studies, and a kaleidoscopic, dislocated love story, in which displacement finds multiple, compelling voices, and the rhythms clash and jostle us out of expectation." 
Andréa Picard - MOUSSE MAGAZINE

"A rejection of the isolation imposed on Gaza and the stasis that those who maintain it hope to engender, the visceral conclusion emphasizes that despite its somber pretenses, Ouroboros is ultimately about hope."
 Daryl Meador - ELECTRONIC INTIFADA

"If it is a film about the future, as Alsharif has stated, it is one that posits a future riddled by destruction, yet whose residual scars have not stunted the capacity for growth, renewal, desire, curiosity, and furtive moments of human pleasure, intimacy and collectivity."
Andréa Picard - MOUSSE MAGAZINE

"Basma Alsharif has garnered attention worldwide for her installations and shorts over the last few years. Her work invites the viewer to re-think the depiction of language, time and space, and to re-experience the understanding of creating images and telling stories. "
Gustavo Beck - MUBI

Whitney Biennial, New York City, USA 2017
70th Locarno Film Festival, Locarno, Switzerland 2017
10th Toronto Palestine Film Festival , Toronto, Canada 2017
61st BFI London Film Festival , London, UK 2017
22nd Milano Film Festival, Milano, Italy 2017
Underdox, Munich, Germany 2017
Days of Cinema, Ramallah, Palestine 2017
RIDM, Montreal, Canada 2017
Valdivia, Valdivia, Chile 2017
AFAC - 10th Anniversary, Beirut, Lebanon 2017, Beirut, Lebanon 2017
Transcinema, Lima, Peru 2017
Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow, UK 2018
Locarno in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, US 2018

1 DVD disc - All-zones
Total running time: 77 min
Image format : 1:85
Sound format : 5.1
Dialog : English, Chinook, Italian
Subtitles : English
Production year : 2017