I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer is Eva Y.C. Chen’s first feature-length project. She served as its director, screenwriter, editor, producer and cinematographer, making the film an entirely personal work. It is an intimate portrait of procrastination, uncertainty about one’s future and the need to have dreams — at times remarkably naturalistic, at times poetic and at times absurdist.

The Taiwanese production was shot in black and white and in the 4:3 aspect ratio. On the one hand, the monochrome colour palette strengthens the dreamlike scenes; on the other, it emphasises the greyness of everyday life. The 4:3 frame, meanwhile, reinforces the impression that the protagonist, Lily Chen (Ariel Deng), is trapped within a claustrophobic and suffocating mental space, unable to take the final step towards completing her novel.

The natural quality of her struggles, conversations and reactions to other people’s comments was captured through the director’s chosen method of filming. Chen explained that the purer creative freedom becomes, the closer one comes to the truth; she also said that she wanted to make a film that looked ‘fun’. For this reason, she shot I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer on an iPhone, frequently working inside rooms and other locations with only one or two actors present.

This enabled her to create a sense of freedom on set, which translated into performances largely devoid of artificiality. This natural quality is also maintained on the linguistic level: the characters use colloquial expressions, pause briefly and sometimes need a moment to consider what they are going to say. All this creates the impression that the actors were improvising in many of the scenes.

The aforementioned Lily Chen is a student who dreams of becoming a novelist but struggles with procrastination, a fear of entering adulthood and an inability to finish her book. The landscape of unfulfilled artistic ambitions and dreams also includes her boyfriend, Xiao Jie, an aspiring photographer who is considering selling his camera and finding work as an insurance salesman, and Lily’s friend Xiao Ai, a painter confronted with the harsh realities of life. These include the need to find paid employment and social criticism of her Afro, a hairstyle unusual in Taiwan.

As Lily reflects upon her future and the plot of her novel, she increasingly loses herself in imaginary, dreamlike worlds. The film combines scenes set in her flat with visualisations of events from her book, dreams and waking fantasies. As a result, I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer acquires an oneiric, slightly surreal and absurdist dimension.

Eva Y.C. Chen also divided the film into a series of chapters with titles such as ‘The Tragedy of the Egg-Yolk Pastry’, reflecting both the production’s somewhat unreal or dreamlike character and the director’s personal fondness for food. Culinary motifs also recur in other forms.

They are most clearly visible in a dream sequence that appears several times, in which the protagonist meets a man eating sesame buns. Dry and consumed one after another, they become a metaphor for monotonous everyday work devoid of even the slightest trace of artistry. Lily, meanwhile, is withering from thirst, but the man cannot offer her so much as a drop of water.

In later scenes, the imaginary worlds within her mind begin to merge, and Lily simultaneously becomes both the protagonist of her own novel and a person commenting upon its plot and the idea behind it. Through these scenes, she expresses a desire to preserve the soul of the artist and the strange ideas that are so often removed in order to make a work commercially successful.

At one point, I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer almost turns briefly into a parody of itself, mocking its own plot—evoking the famous scene criticising Polish cinema in Marek Piwowski’s The Cruise (1970)—and moving more decisively towards the absurdity that also accompanies many of its other scenes to a greater or lesser extent.

Indeed, the film’s French distributor promoted it through the prism of the Theatre of the Absurd and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, although I find these comparisons somewhat overstated. Nevertheless, they clearly indicate that Eva Y.C. Chen does not employ dreams and non-linear narration as a means of escaping reality, but treats them as a form of resistance to the social normalisation of art.

For this reason, she does not treat the protagonist’s procrastination and daydreaming in pejorative terms. Quite the opposite: she defends Lily’s right not to be ready, to wander, to search for her own path and to daydream, opposing a world governed exclusively by the principles of functionality.

This fragment of Lily’s life—and dreams—was never intended to become an inspirational story about a young woman’s success. Instead, it is a story about uncertainty, self-doubt, experimenting with different ideas and stubborn daydreaming, which is closely related to creativity and therefore ultimately positive.

This element of wandering is also visible in the form of the film itself. Chen had a very small budget at her disposal, described as ‘a short-film budget used to make a feature’. This forced her to work in an almost radically independent and nearly literally homemade fashion.

As a result, the production frequently resembles a student project rather than a fully fledged work. At times, it loses its rhythm; its form is slightly too loose; it is overloaded with dialogue; and the male members of the cast seem somewhat theatrical and uncertain in their performances, particularly when compared with the remarkable naturalness of the actresses.

Ultimately, I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer is a film that requires the viewer to accept, at least partially, its creator’s way of looking at the world. Should we establish a connection with Lily and allow ourselves to be guided through the meanderings of her mind, travelling alongside her may prove an appealing experience.

Should we instead expect a tightly constructed plot, greater technical proficiency and more clearly defined relationships of cause and effect, we may encounter difficulties in daydreaming alongside Lily Chen and Eva Y.C. Chen.

I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer
Nǚhái bái rì mèng (lit.: Girl’s Daydream)
Directed, written, shot by: Eva Y.C. Chen
Music: Hua-Hsuan Tseng
Premiere: 27.06.2025
Studio: Eplayground Studio
Cast: Ariel Deng, Yu Po-yun, Zheng Jing-wen, Ku Feng

Awards:
– Luleå — Best Debut Feature Film and Best Debut Director Feature Film;
– Mannheim — Best Feature Film;
– Gloucester — Best Feature Film;
– Culver City — Best International Feature Film.