3 Friends, They Argue, They Lose #shortfilm00:01:05

Bibi invites her childhood friends Chichi and A-Fei over to make dumplings after Chichis breakup. But in the middle of all the fun, their most cherished childhood keepsake a heart-shaped stone ring goes missing. Could it have ended up inside one of the dumplings? To find out, they eat every single one. What starts as comfort turns into chaos, leaving nothing on the table but three dumplings.

A story about the last afternoon of childhood, the friends we fight to keep, and the things we can never get back.

Award-Winning Short Film | Originally in Mandarin Chinese
English subtitles available

Country: Taiwan
Genre: Drama / Comedy
Runtime: 18 min

Directors Statement: I grew up in a bustling household in rural Tainan, Taiwan, surrounded by six younger siblings and cousins. As children, we were inseparable, but the friction of reality began to drift us apart while we were growing up. During the final summer before my college graduation, I repeatedly invited them to play the board games that once defined our childhood, only to be rejected. Overwhelmed by the isolation and hardships of living alone away from home, I harbored a deep resentment toward the weight of adulthood. That afternoon, I wept under my blanket. Watching my tears and grief wrinkle into a tissue, looking remarkably like a dumpling, a spark of inspiration was born. This image gave life to Bibi, a protagonist clinging to youth, and formed the emotional spine of this story about her trying to recapture a fleeting afternoon with her best friends. In Taiwanese Hokkien, there is a slang that compares weeping to making dumplings, simply because a crumpled, wet tissue looks just like a dumpling. Therefore, the title Three Dumplings serves as a metaphor: these three characters, each facing their own unspoken crises, are like dumplings about to be tossed into a boiling pot called society. They all looked the same and didnt know where they would end up. I decided to keep the whole story in one location from the very beginning. In the end, we may have to say goodbye to childhood, but the friendship we shared stays with us. I hope this film connects with your own beautiful memories with friends.

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Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian, Polish

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