Synopsis
In Chinese New Year holidays, finding the coin inside the dumplings means a blessed year ahead. A young woman loses a jar on her journey to a new country, which contained the lucky coins she had been collecting growing up. Her new life begins with a search to find the coin.
Song Siqi
Siqi Song is an Oscars-Nominated writer and director from China, currently based in Los Angeles. Her films have been recognized by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Sundance, BAFTA, and ASIFA-Hollywood. She is named a Film Independent Directing Fellow in 2018, BAFTA Los Angeles Newcomer in 2019 and nominated for an Oscars for her animated short SISTER in 2020. Siqi is an alumnus of California Institute of the Arts and China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Director's statement
The story starts with a family tradition from childhood memories. Every New Year’s Eve, my family would gather in the kitchen and make dumplings together. In one of the dumplings we would hide a coin. That coin represented good wishes: whoever got the coin will have a good year ahead. Right now, I am thousands of miles away from home, and I constantly feel the fear of the unknown, the exposure to different cultures, and the anxiety of trying to survive in a new society. When I face digestive problems to exotic food, I find myself keep looking for familiar food to shield myself and hope it will bring me back to the moment of comfort of fining the coin. The most important message I try to communicate with THE COIN is a belief. The coin can represent anything: fortune, health, wealth, success, whatever is important to you. A belief of oneself in pursuing something important. Maybe what we eat has already became an essential part of who we are and how we define ourselves. For me, this film itself could be one of the coins I have been searching for.
