Sleeping with the Devil (2017, United States) by Alisa Yang

Alisa Yang’s Sleeping with the Devil Joins the Auteur Cinema Archive

The Auteur Cinema Archive is proud to announce the inclusion of Sleeping with the Devil (2017, USA) by Alisa Yang—an unflinching, emotionally raw experimental documentary that confronts the personal trauma and spiritual confusion left in the wake of religious fundamentalism. At once cathartic and unsettling, the film is as intimate as it is uncomfortable, offering an uncompromising look at the scars of Evangelical deliverance ministries.

Centered around a real Skype exorcism booked with infamous televangelist Bob Larson—for a fee of $295—Yang turns the camera on herself and invites us into the most vulnerable corners of her experience. The footage is intercut with archival clips, home video, and found footage that expand her personal confrontation into a critique of a wider system of religious control, patriarchal judgment, and emotional manipulation.

What makes Sleeping with the Devil so powerful is not just its subject matter, but Yang’s willingness to lay herself bare in front of the camera. Humor and discomfort rub shoulders, and the absurdity of the exorcist’s diagnosis—ranging from multiple personalities to demonic influence—only makes the emotional truth at the center more poignant. Yang’s strength lies in using this encounter not for spectacle, but for reclamation.

Curator Kris De Meester on the inclusion:
"Sleeping with the Devil is raw, intimate, and deeply uncomfortable—in the best possible way. Alisa Yang doesn’t just tell us her story, she lets us sit with her in the room where it unfolds. It’s bold, fearless auteur filmmaking that forces the viewer to grapple with questions of faith, shame, identity, and autonomy. The courage to be this vulnerable is rare—and it deserves to be seen."

The film was awarded the Best Regional Filmmaker Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and went on to screen at Slamdance, the Brussels Independent Film Festival, and many more. It resonated widely not only because of its subject, but because of the directness and emotional clarity with which it approaches that subject. Yang’s decision to be filmed during a literal exorcism is a radical act—one that transforms personal pain into collective insight.

A graduate of the University of Michigan and Art Center of Design, Alisa Yang is an antidisciplinary artist whose work often interrogates cultural identity, memory, and sexuality. With Sleeping with the Devil, she uses documentary form as both weapon and mirror, confronting inherited beliefs while offering space for others to examine their own.

By including Sleeping with the Devil in the Auteur Cinema Archive, we honor not only a bold and boundary-pushing film, but also the larger project of reclaiming one’s voice through cinema. Yang’s work reminds us that sometimes the most important stories come from the most painful places—and that healing can begin in the act of telling.