Australian Video Art Archive

Dennis Del Favero

 

Deep sleep

00:09:41 2004

Deep Sleep is a haunting exploration of the ill-famed Chelmsford Psychiatric Hospital... visions of tormented patients, ambiguous authority figures and a grim, deserted hospital interior, swim by like horrifying hallucinations. A naked woman embraces a doctor in white coat. A man's head appears to bleed as heart-rate machines bleat in alarm. Cubicles housing only a light and a high, long window, seem somehow smutted by repugnant horrors. Yet, rather than being alienating, Del Favero's prophetic installation is a consuming wonder in the dark."
-  LOW, Lenny Ann, ‘Depths of Passion in the Ordinary’. The Sydney Morning Herald (17 August 2004)

Deep Sleep investigates the extraordinary events surrounding a psychiatric hospital in Sydney during the 1970's and its notorious insulin coma therapy during which patients were put to sleep for six weeks in order to remove painful memories.

Deep Sleep forms Part Two of Del Favero's larger Slipstream project, a suite of trailers dealing with the schizophrenia of the world.

Director, Producer and Designer: Dennis Del Favero.
Writer: Stephen Sewell.
Composer: Kate Moore.
Sound Designer: Tony MacGregor and Dennis Del Favero.
Multi-Media Designer and Programmer: Volker Kuchelmesiter.
Sound Engineer: John Jacobs.
Stylist and Designer: Karla Urizar.
Make-up Artist: Coco Milaes.
Voice-overs:
Dancer: Kelly Butler;
Dr Bailey: Danny Adcoc;
Commission Investigator: Ray Ryan;
Secretary: Mary Regan.
Actors:
Dancer: Hollie Berry;
Commission investigation: Tony Alderman;
Dr Bailey: Eric Clayton;
Secretary: Deborah Patton.

Published and produced by the iCinema, Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Co-Produced in association with Radio Eye, ABC Radio National.

Assisted by the Australian Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

DVD available.