By Yun-hua Chen.
What’s important is understanding that pain cannot be compared. We can’t measure how someone else’s pain impacts them versus our own. Empathy is key.”
It’s an unexpected encounter during a summer in Recife, Brazil. Kai, a tourist from Taiwan, finds herself alone after being abandoned by her boyfriend just moments before boarding the plane. While buying an umbrella, she meets Fu Ang, a mysterious figure who soon disappears. Left behind is a box of postcards addressed to Fu Ang from someone named Xiaoxin, a migrant worker temporarily living and working with others in a towering skyscraper. Dreamlike and fluid, Sleep with Your Eyes Open flows between characters, perspectives and languages, capturing a profound sense of dislocation and fleeting human connections amid isolation. Its uniquely non-linear narrative weaves a tapestry of longing and connection with unusually exquisite beauty.
The film premiered at the Berlinale, where it won the FIPRESCI award, and was later selected for the international competition at IndieLisboa.
How did the East Asian elements come into this film that is set in Brazil?
My decision to collaborate with people from Taiwan and China goes back to my first film, The Future Perfect (2016). It was inspired by my experience as a foreign woman living in Buenos Aires and working as a filmmaker in a language I spoke and understood, though different from what I was born with, but could never fully grasp in its nuance—the double meanings, cultural layers, and linguistic richness. I realized that as a filmmaker in Buenos Aires, I could only work through my foreign perspective, embracing it as a strength rather than a limitation.
This realization led to The Future Perfect, a film about a young Chinese woman from Fujian who arrives in a new country and city, learns a new language, and takes on the text of this language as if rehearsing for a new role—an imagined dialogue for a new character she must discover within herself. I met Xiaobin, the protagonist, at the language school where I taught German. At the time, she was just beginning to learn Spanish. Her background, being from China, was perfect for me, as I had no prior connection to East Asia. This distance allowed me to explore solitude and isolation—what it means to be cut off from others because of language.

I wanted the film to revolve around a triangle of foreigners: Xiaobin from China, myself from Germany, and the two of us working together in Argentina. There was little common ground between us, which became the foundation for creating a shared language through cinema—an evolving mix of documentary and fiction, built on broken Spanish as our shared medium.
After The Future Perfect, time passed, and Xiaobin and I continued to live in Argentina. We realized that although I now spoke the language fluently, had friends, and found work, I remained a foreigner. Simultaneously, my homeland had evolved independently of my experiences, becoming a place I could no longer fully call home. The simple act of returning felt unfamiliar, as if I no longer belonged anywhere.
This sense of disconnection—a deep, undefined non-belonging—became the central theme I wanted to explore in my next project. When I heard about a peculiar tower building in Recife, Brazil, where tensions existed between Chinese residents and upper-class, predominantly white Brazilians, it felt like the perfect setting. The architecture itself fascinated me—generic structures that could exist anywhere, with no connection to their environment, designed in 3D software and dropped into place without regard for the local context. And then, the opportunity to co-produce with Taiwan was a stroke of luck.
Space is an important theme in the film, from the ground floor to the tower building…
It’s fascinating to see that the film’s progression has a geometric form of its own: the horizontal plane of life on the ground level versus the verticality of the tower. Skyscrapers often symbolize societal hierarchies, functioning as microcosms of class divisions. The tower’s architecture, with its abundance of glass and windows, offered opportunities to play with separation—keeping the protagonists isolated from the outside world, while keeping that world ever-present in the frame.
And the aquarium, which also marks the space between your characters…
Yes, being there yet isolated, as if moving within a fish tank while the world exists just beyond reach. The architecture of the building itself very much resembles a fish tank, with its abundant glass and water surrounding the structure.
Isolated, yet with the possibility of connection, like through postcards…
There is this main connection between the two women who communicate solely through these postcards, but there’s also a connection within the physical space. I chose three characters for this ensemble film—very different individuals with distinct temperaments and life situations. Yet, they all share a profound sense of non-belonging, each having lost their sense of belonging for different reasons. I believe this feeling can happen to anyone, anywhere. What they share is an abstract state of disconnection, which enables them to sense each other and have these fleeting encounters—the only way to alleviate their feelings of loss.
At the beginning of the process, I explored a real story about a group of Chinese immigrants living in a tower in Recife. My initial research and information came directly from this community. Being a European filmmaker creating a film in Brazil about Chinese immigrants, I felt the need to introduce Kai—a tourist character who provides a meta-level perspective. She exists within the fiction without breaking it, somehow contained. The entire story inside the building can also be seen as Kai’s imagination, sparked while reading the postcards.
When I spoke with the Chinese community in the tower, I noticed people were reluctant to discuss their failures or hardships in detail. They would mention struggles but never delve deeply. It’s natural—people avoid verbalizing their troubles. It’s the job of the artist to give voice to these unspoken emotions. This is what Xiaoxin does in the film: writing postcards, chronicles, and observations. She becomes the person who articulates the community’s experiences, completing the narrative through Kai, who becomes her reader.
How was it working on set with both professional and non-professional actors?
It’s something I truly enjoy. Most of the cast were non-professional actors. Shin-hong Wong, for example, is an actor, but this was his first time working with a director other than Midi Z. He didn’t attend acting school, which gives him a unique quality as an actor. He understands the technical needs of a film set, yet his approach is very different from Nahuel Pérez Biscayarts, the trained actor in the group. Both have exceptional sensitivity.
When mixing first-time actors with professionals, it’s crucial to select professionals who can adapt to the naturalistic style of non-professionals. They must dial back their performances and match the smaller, subtler scale of emotional expression that aligns with the film’s reality. Shin-hong, with his experience in documentary and hybrid work, and Nahuel, with his curiosity for unconventional narrative cinema, brought invaluable dynamics to the set. They both understood the rhythm and framing needed to maintain energy within static shots, which was essential given our tight shooting schedule and limited camera movement. They acted as “secret agents” within the scenes, keeping them alive and engaging throughout each take.
There was little common ground between us, which became the foundation for creating a shared language through cinema—an evolving mix of documentary and fiction, built on broken Spanish as our shared medium.”
How was the multilingual situation on set?
Xiaoxin spoke Spanish, Kai spoke English, and we had a Mandarin translator for Shin-hong and others. I communicated with some actors in Portuguese, especially those who had lived in Brazil longer. The translation process naturally took up a lot of time on set.
The Taiwanese tourist Kai’s tempo is fascinating. The way she speaks to the stranger at the bar on the beach struck me the most.
For that scene, we mostly used the last take. We had just one night to shoot, with the translator traveling from Argentina specifically for this. It’s a dialogue that could have gone in many directions, but we used pauses and silences to emphasize a sense of awkwardness—hesitating before responding, creating space, then doubling back. This awkwardness helped us avoid stereotypical comedic beats.
Kai was my student during a semester I taught in Hamburg. I first noticed her during an acting workshop I gave and was struck by her presence. When I cast her for this role, I adapted the script to her, as I come from a documentary background and enjoy integrating what actors naturally bring to the table.
In real life, she talks much more than in the film. For the role, I removed much of the dialogue to focus on what truly needed to be heard—a lesson I learned from a documentary mentor: take away unnecessary words to highlight what matters.
The imagery of water is prevalent, from the sea to the aquarium, rain, and the swimming pool…

Water is a natural presence in Recife, a coastal city with many rivers flowing to the sea. It’s hot, but you can’t swim in the sea because of sharks, so swimming pools become essential. For me, water reflects the characters’ emotional states—a floating existence, detached and without a stable base. This floating sensation is something I aimed to capture visually as well.
You explore various ways of “not belonging” in the film, from tourist sites to working-class migrant communities. How do you perceive belonging in a time of globalized movement?
What’s important is understanding that pain cannot be compared. We can’t measure how someone else’s pain impacts them versus our own. Empathy is key—acknowledging the complexity of being without trying to quantify it.
I’m not particularly drawn to social dramas. Often, they cater to a bourgeois audience without having real-world impact. Many so-called politically conscious films feel hollow. Instead, I’m more interested in characters: Chinese migrant workers in precarious situations, a wealthy niece of Chinese immigrants, and a Taiwanese tourist, and in leaving space for them to exist as specific, charismatic characters.
This film is more subtle and dreamlike compared to my first feature, which was more explicit and meta-cinematic. Sleep with Your Eyes Open seeks to encapsulate everything within a single cohesive fiction, maintaining the delicate balance between film and reality without breaking its levels.
How was the post-production process in Taiwan?
It felt like the greatest privilege to work in a different place rather than just visiting as a tourist. I enjoyed it so much more. Working there gave me a sense of everyday routine, and I was incredibly fortunate to collaborate with the editor, our post-production coordinator, colorist Wen-Kai Hung andthe sound master Duu-Chih Tu; everyone made me feel completely at home.
We were editing in a studio shared by my producer Justine O. and her husband, Matthieu Laclau, an editor who recently worked on Jia Zhangke’s latest film, and several editors. Matthieu, though French, lived in China for many years and has edited numerous Chinese and Taiwanese films. It was a vibrant, collaborative environment. When we prepared a cut, we’d have screenings, and others would join to watch and give feedback. It was truly a collective feeling.
The level of dedication and seriousness I encountered there was unlike anything I had known before. I had lived in Argentina, which has a rich cinema culture and talented people, but this was on an entirely different level in Taiwan. I couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason, but I had the impression that there was a heightened sense of urgency, perhaps rooted in a genuine existential threat. I have the feeling that people work with another serious way, as if you don’t do it now, whatever you do, you have to do for real because now is now.
Walking in Taipei made me feel that I was walking through an Edward Yang film. The area that we were in resembles very much the Taipei in his films, these amazingly elegant shots that are minimalistic but also essential; I always have the feeling that these were the only possible shots, not out of pretension. The city, architecture, motorbikes, as if this chaos has some secret order, seem be embedded with some meaning behind it all.
Taipei is deeply aligned with Marc Augé’s concept of non-places, as if his theory were written specifically for this city. What filmmakers like Tsai Ming-liang do, in their own way, is imbue these spaces with stories, histories, and layers of human emotion, transforming them into something more. These spaces develop a kind of charisma. It’s an extraordinary synergy between the city and cinema, as if the city requires cinema to construct its own legend, its own myth. The relationship is so seamless because there are no excesses—both the city and its cinema are essential to each other, creating a perfect synergy. I think this dynamic is a crucial element of the Taiwanese New Wave.
The trauma, however, is ongoing. During my first period in Taiwan, I was struck by the family histories of the people I worked with. I discovered how deeply their lives were shaped by intergenerational trauma. Events that happened within families, even generations ago, continued to echo in the present, shaping their identities. And alongside this, the unresolved weight of history remains, with very real dangers still looming.
What is your next project going to be?
It’s about returning to where I came from. I’ve just started writing. The film will be set in Hannover, the city where I grew up—a place largely destroyed during World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s as a car-centric city, reflecting the postwar vision of a future dominated by automobiles. Hannover is a very typical German city, not particularly unique in its character, which I find fascinating. There’s a certain simplicity to working with its essence. I’m exploring how to depict those “non-place” areas.
Do you feel ready to make a film in Germany now, bringing this outsider perspective with you?
Surprisingly, no—I’m not as ready as I thought. I always begin a project thinking it’s something I can tackle easily, but it’s never that simple. Still, I think that’s just how the process works. The trick is to get started, and once you’re in it, you have to figure out your own method. I’ve realized I’m much better at discovering my own approach than trying to adhere to conventional methods of making a fiction film.
Yun-hua Chen is an independent film scholar and critic and associate editor of Film International Online. Currently, she serves on the board of the German Film Critics Association.