A birthday cake should be a simple thing to carry home. In Year of the Dragon, it becomes the center of a journey filled with disappointment, uncertainty, and a mother’s unwavering devotion.
Written and directed by Giran Findlay Liu, the 2025 Canadian short follows Beatrice, a Chinese Canadian mother who sets out to collect a cake for her son’s birthday. Her plans go wrong almost immediately when the bakery gives her a chocolate cake instead of strawberry. From there, a series of setbacks begins to test her patience and reveal the difficult reality surrounding her son’s situation.
The story remains deceptively simple. Liu, however, uses that simplicity to create something much more emotionally complex.
Seeing a Mother Through a Stranger’s Eyes
The idea for Year of the Dragon began with an unexpected encounter. Liu once noticed an elderly Chinese woman on the subway carrying a bouquet of balloons without any expression on her face. He began wondering about the life she might have been living beyond that moment.
As the son of an immigrant mother himself, Liu started projecting his own experiences onto this stranger. He wondered what his own mother looked like when he wasn’t there to see her.
That personal connection gives Beatrice’s journey its emotional weight. Liu doesn’t explain everything at once. Instead, details accumulate as the day unfolds, allowing the audience to gradually understand what is at stake.
Carrying the Weight of Love
Fiona Fu gives Beatrice very little dialogue, yet her face communicates an extraordinary range of emotions. Determination, vulnerability, sadness, and love surface through the smallest changes in expression. The camera stays close enough to capture those moments, while longer shots give us time to follow her through the difficulties of the day.
The film premiered in the Short Cuts program at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival before screening at festivals including Palm Springs ShortFest. It later won Best Live Action Short Drama and Best Performance in a Live Action Short Drama at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards.
Ultimately, Year of the Dragon finds something profound in an ordinary act of care. A mother carries a birthday cake across the city. Beneath that simple gesture lies a lifetime of sacrifice, love, and the desire to be there when her child needs her most.
