In the arms of Morpheus (2019)

Official selection
Netherlands
Film Festival
2019

Karlovy Vary
International
Film Festival
2019

Official selection
Antenna Documentary
Film Festival
2019

Official selection
Noordelijk
Film Festival
2019

Official selection
Beldocs International
Film Festival
2020

Gdansk Doc
Film Festival
Main competition
2020

Gouden Kalf
Competition
Netherlands
Film Festival
2020

Regisseur
Marc Schmidt
Cinematography
Jean Counet
Editor
Katarina Türler
Composer
Inne Eysermans
Sound design
Senjan Jansen
Coproducer
KRO-NCRV
Associate Directors (Belgium)
Producer
DOXY Films
Partners
The Netherlands Film Fund
The Netherlands Production Incentive
Media Fund
CoBO
Flanders Audiovisual Fund

Synopsis

Only in sleep can you escape the logic of daily life. By forgetting and dreaming. But what if your sleep is so intense that it disrupts your daytime life? In the arms of Morpheus is a quest into the beauty and cruelty of sleep. An irrational world that we cannot control, but that can control us. Roselien is always tired and falls asleep everywhere. There is an effective medicine but at what cost? Emily is plagued by apocalyptic nightmares and aggression during her sleepwalking. A ritual seems to offer a solution. Their stories are interwoven with a poet who spends her nights wandering through Brussels, a mother with a lifelike sleep paralysis and a musician with loud explosions in his head. One man has a dreamless sleep for no more than two hours and a waking life remains. Are you the one in your sleep, or the person when you are awake? Is your daily life a consequence of how you got through the night or is your nightlife a processing of your daily existence?

The logic of the dream outweighs the reality of the documentary as In the arms of Morpheus gradually turns into a stimulating mosaic of radical sleep experiences; true-to-life observations containing strange elements and a conversation which takes place in a dream of a burned-out house. In an era in which efficiency and control are paramount, Marc Schmidt brings a cinematographic ode to the absurd and elusive sides of our existence.

 

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