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Recipient of the Guardian UK "Best First Film" award in 2010.
SLEEP FURIOUSLY is set in Trefeurig, a small farming community in Wales and the place where filmmaker Gideon Koppel's parents (both refugees) found a home. This is a landscape and population that is changing rapidly as small-scale agriculture is disappearing. The title takes its name from Noam Chomsky's "impossible" sentence (correct grammatically but nonsense semantically), "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously," which evokes the complex situation faced by the ardent individuals featured in the film. Influenced by his conversations with the writer Peter Handke, Koppel leads us on a poetic and profound journey into a world of endings and beginnings; a world of stuffed owls, sheep and fire. Featuring a haunting score by Aphex Twin, SLEEP FURIOUSLY is, as John Banville of Sight & Sound accurately described it, "simply, a masterpiece."
GENRES
- Awards & Accolades
- Best Documentary Evening Standard British Film Awards 2010
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Reviews
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This is an artistic gem. It's a blur of imagination and information. Gritty, realistic, and sugar free. Exposes the traditional way of life in Wales and for all it's simplicity we are shown an equal amount of troubles. I left feeling like a part of the community, as much affected by the events as the people in the film. Interesting, definitely worth watching. Big Aphex Twin junkie, and found the movie through a promotion on Facebook linked to me having "liked" Aphex Twin's page.
beautiful film! this modern world could learn a thing or two from this simple town. well done!
... this had been released before I went to Wales last week! I was only an hour away from Trefeurig and saw first hand a bit of what is shown in "sleep furiously" and although the views are beautiful, the people interesting and simple life a reminder of what we need more of, seeing it in person is just so much more intense, richer... deeper.
Having read just this week about the anticipated slow drain of rural life in the U.S., "Sleep Furiously" carries added resonance. Vast green fields are balm to the eyes of this city dweller. May more local farmers be able to find market niches for their sustainability.
IM GLAD I CAME . Wonderful work . Thank you ! Please listen with headphones.
This film totally grabbed me. It is slow-paced and dream-like, as it follows the community of Trefeurig without narration or voice-over. Fragments of lives apprear and Disappear on the screen. The photography is wonderful and I love the way the animals feature as much as the humans. If you love Wales, and even if you don't, you will enjoy this documentary about a disappearing way of life.
The slow pace of fast-disappearing traditional rural life was brilliantly portrayed in this documentary-style film by filmmaker Gideon Koppel. Small community Welsh life hasn't changed in decades, despite the addition of modern farm machinery, central heating, and a mobile library van. Most notable was the village discussion of the possible closure of the village school, a death knell for any community. An aptly titled film, Sleep Furiously celebrates the small, but surely most significant acts of our lives, from sheering sheep to baking cakes to chatting with neighbors.
loved it !! 'cymru am byth' will share this with many. -Caroline Jones
Telluride co-founder/co-director Tom Luddy recommended SLEEP FURIOUSLY a few years ago (shortly after the documentary had its North American premiere at the festival). He figured that it was exactly the sort of picture I would appreciate. He figured correctly, as usual! SLEEP FURIOUSLY is an extraordinary and thoroughly commendable film.