As an artist, how is it possible to contemplate the traumas of modern history and envision the possibility – or impossibility – of a future? A multidisciplinary filmmaker of Palestinian origin, Basma Alsharif confronts these fundamental questions in a singular work, Ouroboros. Part experimental documentary, part fiction, the work constructs a meditative vision of the Gaza Strip before turning to the melancholy wandering of a character searching for love on several continents. The filmmaker ignores all the rules of cinema – including the concept of linear recording – to create a new language that not only questions the nature of cinema, but our way of thinking about the issues facing the Middle East.

Presented in collaboration with the Institute of International Education and Bell Media

Ouroboros