“Will I smell normal again when I return home?” asks Fu Ang, terrified of losing his identity after many years living in Brazil. His fears are shared by two of the film’s other protagonists, the broken traveler Kai and young Xiao Xin. Individually and as a group, they illustrate the lives of people who have given up their roots in order to wander the liminal spaces of a globalized world with a feeling that they don’t belong anywhere. Enchanting and funny, Sleep with Your Eyes Open disrupts the artificial framework of cinematic narrative and, under a blazing sun, brings to life a subdued emotional landscape in which the wheels of buses turn in different directions and fleeting moments of understanding become islands in a sea full of sharks.
Vojtěch Kočárník
97 min / Color, DCP
Director Nele Wohlatz
/ Screenplay Nele Wohlatz, Pio Longo
/ Dir. of Photography Roman Kasseroller
/ Sound Javier Farina, Mercedes Tennina, Tu Duu-Chih
/ Editor Yann-shan Tsai, Ana Godoy
/ Art Director Diogo Hayashi
/ Producer Emilie Lesclaux, Ruda Cine, Violeta Bava, Yi Tiao Long Hu Bao, Justine O., Meike Martens
/ Production Cinemascópio, Blinker Filmproduktion
/ Cast Chen Xiao Xin, Wang Shin-Hong, Liao Kai Ro, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Lu Yang Zong
/ Sales Rediance
Nele Wohlatz (1982, Hanover, Germany). Selected filmography: The Future Perfect (El futuro perfecto, 2016), Sleep with Your Eyes Open (Dormir de olhos abertos, 2024).
Rediance
Room 1703 Tower B, Star City International Tower, Jiu Xian Qiao Road, Chaoyang District, 100020, Beijing
China
E-mail: [email protected]
Nele Wohlatz
Film Director
Kai Ro Liao
Actress
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