Videoex Festival 2024: Artist Focus: Basma al-Sharif

Having grown up between the Middle East, Europe and the USA, Palestinian filmmaker Basma al-Sharif sees herself and her practice as nomadic. She defines her work as starting from a subjective point of view that is not geographically localised. She repeatedly returns to Palestine and Gaza in particular. Central to this is the feeling of homelessness and the longing for a home that is both unattainable and a place of trauma. Her films often move between places and non-places as well as back and forth in time; she depicts history and space with their numerous layers and dimensions, weaving past, present and future into a single timeline. In doing so, she explores the relationship of the individual to political history, colonial heritage and collective memory, and ultimately the human condition in relation to landscapes, geographies, history and geopolitics.