Decoupling

Decoupling was once a term primarily used in cosmology, but it has now taken on a geopolitical significance, referring to the deteriorating relationship between China and the United States. The film Decoupling is a story of a Chinese father reflecting on that changing relationship during his trip to Beijing to retrieve his 3-year-old daughter, who has been stranded because of the recent decoupling of the two countries. Born in China and living in the American Midwest, filmmaker Yinan Wang attempts to unpack his own experience of how a transnational migrant family deals with the distress caused by identity, nationalism, and geopolitics.