How Locarno Winner Nele Wohlatz Explores Migrants’ Loss of a Sense of Belonging in Berlinale Film ‘Sleep With Your Eyes Open’
Leo 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.