Basma Alsharif
Biography
Basma Alsharif is an Artist/Filmmaker born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, raised between France and the US. Since receiving a Master of Fine Arts in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, she developed her practice nomadically between Chicago, Cairo, Beirut, Sharjah, Amman, the Gaza Strip and Paris. Basma's work centers on the human condition in relation to shifting geopolitical landscapes and natural environments. Interested in what cannot ever be proven or explained, she uses photography, film, video, sound, language and performance to reveal the fallibility of our perception and of history. Engaging with politics on a visceral level through pieces characterized by their immersive, lyrical qualities, Alsharif creates familiar environments that lure us into unsettling experiences of being comfortable and foreign simultaneously.
Known For & Full Filmography2 Titles
Movie - 2019, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Based on Gertrude Stein’s eponymously named screenplay, written in 1929 as European fascism was building momentum. Beatrice Gibson’s adaptation, set almost a century later in contemporary Paris, deploys Stein’s script as a talismanic guide through a contemporary moment of comparable social and political unrest. An original soundtrack, written especially for the film by British composer Laurence Crane, responds to the repetition, duplication and duality at play in Stein’s script. Both a fictional thriller and an act of collective representation, Deux Soeurs proposes empathy and friendship as means to reckon with an increasingly turbulent present.
Movie - 2014, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.