The Coin
A film by Siqi Song
storySynopsis
In Chinese New Year holidays, finding the coin inside the dumplings means having a blessed year ahead. A young woman loses a jar on her journey to a new country, which contains the lucky coins she has been collecting growing up. Her new life begins with a search to find the coin.
My Thoughts
My favorite scene is the opening cooking scene. The lively sound of chopping ingredients brings such realism to the inanimate objects. Not only does the film execute physical experiences, but it illustrates complex feelings and poetic narratives. The film takes you on a surreal experience through the director’s creative world.
process
Stop Motion
Stop Motion is an animated filmmaking technique that uses a series of images to create an illusion of motion. Between each frame, a figure is manipulated in small increments to achieve a smooth and realistic representation of movement.
Siqi’s puppets are designed with a metal skeleton to achieve joint-like motion that imitates the natural human movement.
sketch
“
THE COIN is a film about tradition, family, immigration, and most importantly, about finding ourselves. The story starts with a New Year tradition from Northern China, where I was born and raised. On New Year’s Eve, families would gather in the kitchen and make dumplings together. In a few of the dumplings, we would hide coins in. At the family dinner, whoever eats the dumplings with the coin in will have a blessed year ahead. The coin in here is simply a leap of faith, a little bit of optimism packaged inside a dumpling. But as I grew up and immigrated to different cities and countries, I find I have to constantly change myself to fit in the new environment. For anyone who has experience of moving from one place to another, would have experienced some sort of identity crisis, the feeling of lost and misplaced. But at the end of the day, I find out our past is an essential part of who we are and that’s what makes us special. Finding faith within ourselves is more important than looking for validation from others.
”
about
Siqi Song
Siqi Song is an Oscar-Nominated director & animator from China, currently based in California, United States. The films she wrote and directed have screened internationally at numerous film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, Ottawa, and more. She is named a Film Independent Directing Fellow in 2018, BAFTA Los Angeles Newcomer in 2019, and nominated for an Oscar and an Annie Award for her short film SISTER in 2020. Song studied at California Institute of the Arts and China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Song’s Other Films
My First Impression
I first saw Song’s film in the 2020 Animated Oscar Shorts last year. The film Sister highlighted the significant loss led by China’s one-child policy. I fell in love with the beautiful and kind storytelling as well as Song’s amazing technical skills and design choices. As someone who loves stop motion animations, Song’s films speak to me like no other. Even though I am from Japan and Song is from China, I see many similarities from being a brother’s little sister to studying abroad in the US.