Paper Daughter
Paper Daughter is a stop motion animated short film that follows a young Chinese woman as she grapples with the guilt of using the identity of a deceased girl to immigrate to the United States via Angel Island in 1926.
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Made with the support of CAPE, Janet Yang Productions, the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge, Shore Scripts and Apartment D Films, this 14-minute film is a Gothic, Chinese American fairy tale that uses magical realism to examine guilt, giving and receiving sacrifice, immigration and unconditional love.
Made over the course of 8 months, animated in 10 weeks, and featuring the art of approximately 50 different artists, Paper Daughter is based on my own great grandmother's immigration to the US via Angel Island in 1926.
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The creation of this film marks the 100 year anniversary of my family's life in America, and I made this film as a tribute to them, and as a way to contribute to the cultural conversation surrounding immigration in the modern day, and what it means to be a country where people come to seek a better future.
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Now that Paper Daughter is complete, our focus is on submitting it to film festivals and making sure it is seen by as many people as possible!
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Additionally, I am currently working on expanding the story into a full feature script, and developing the necessary materials to begin seeking support for an independent feature film.
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As part of the independent animation community, I aim to create more diverse animated stories and expand opportunities for the indie animation community, especially in stop motion.
Once our festival run is complete, our goal is to develop an accompanying curriculum/discussion guide and get Paper Daughter into middle school and high school history classes!
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The purpose of this film is to examine topics such as sacrifice, immigration and the historical realities of Angel Island. Any awareness and understanding we can raise and create is something we will be proud of!
To learn more about Paper Daughter, and to stay in the loop about our festival progress and feature film development, please subscribe to my newsletter here:
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Paper Daughter was made with the support of:
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