How Locarno Winner Nele Wohlatz Explores Migrants’ Loss of a Sense of Belonging in Berlinale Film ‘Sleep With Your Eyes Open’
variety.comLeo Barraclough International Features Editor German filmmaker Nele Wohlatz‘s “Sleep With Your Eyes Open,” which had its world premiere on Saturday in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival, tells a story about the search for a sense of belonging in a foreign country.
It starts with Kai, a young Taiwanese woman with a broken heart, arriving at a Brazilian beach resort for a holiday. Here, her life crosses paths with a group of Chinese migrants living in a luxury tower block, and in particular a young woman called Xiaoxin, who accepts her fate, and Fu Ang, who is working in an umbrella store when we meet him but harbors ambitions to become wealthy.
Xiaoxin writes about her life on a series of postcards, which are never sent and are eventually discarded. Kai finds them and reads them, provided a connection between the two women.
At one point, we stop following Kai and our attention shifts to Xiaoxin and Fu Ang. Among the filmmakers who have influenced Wohlatz’s film are Martín Rejtman, one of the founders of the New Argentine Cinema. “He has this very deadpan, absurd humour, and works with highly professional actors, but they are very low key in their expressions,” she tells Variety.
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