The question is a good one, and I must admit that I’m quite tired as I write this. But there’s much to do in the daytime hours, and I’m only hurting myself by cutting short my sleep, right? According to Haskel Wexler’s new doc Who Needs Sleep?, I might be wrong in that assumption. The movie is about reforms that several people are trying to make in the film industry, the only industry in the civilized world fighting for a 14 hour workday. You see, when people are “forcedâ€� (really, they would be fired if they left early) to work 14- to 18- to 22-hour days, for days on end, they become subject to fatigue, which often hits on the sometimes deadly drive home. The movie is quite good in its intentions, and even touching at times, but it gets a little redundant and would benefit from examinations of other sleep-depriving industries like doctors and nurses.

I missed the other sleep-themed movies. One was Alan Berliner’s Wide Awake, and the other was Michel Gondry’s follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep. I heard great things about the former, and mixed-to-very good things about the latter. I look forward to catching up to those soon. After I get some rest.

-Andy Spletzer
reporting from Sundance