Canada has picked the animated documentary Eternal Spring to represent the country in the 2023 Oscar race for best international feature.
Jason Loftus directed the film, which looks at an event in March 2002, when members of the outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong hijacked a state TV station in China in an attempt to counter government propaganda about their spiritual practice.
Eternal Spring is the first documentary, the first animated film, and the first Mandarin-language film to be chosen by Canada for the Oscars.
Vice has picked up worldwide rights to the documentary, complementing multiple individual television territory deals with the likes of Arte for France and Germany and the Al Jazeera Doc Channel for the Middle East and North Africa.
“This is an important movie that covers so many of the topics important to Vice — censorship, creativity, religious freedom and displacement — all done in some of the most exquisite animation I’ve ever seen,” said Brendan Kennedy, vp development Vice News. “We’re lucky to have this one on our slate.”
Sideways Film is handling world sales on the Canadian production on behalf of Loftus and producers Lofty Sky Entertainment.
Canadian films have been nominated seven times for the best international feature Oscar, the most recent being Kim Nguyen’s War Witch in 2012. The only Canadian film to ever win the prize was Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions in 2003.