The award-winning “Eternal Spring” is playing for one week in AMC Theatres starting Friday, Oct. 21, and if weekend attendance is high, may be extended another week.
The film uses a novel combination of animation and in-person interviews to recreate the historic event and bring the story alive.
“I think that people will resonate with it, regardless of whether they have a particular interest in the Chinese human rights situation,” the filmmaker Jason Loftus told NTD Television, sister media of The Epoch Times, on Oct. 17.
Loftus said there’s something universal about stories that show people standing up in the face of adversity.
Falun Gong was introduced to the public in China in 1992, and it grew to 70 million practitioners by the late 90s, according to official estimates. In 1999, the Chinese Communist regime began an extensive persecution of the practice, fearful that the regime’s power was threatened by the group’s large following. Since then, millions have been detained, often facing torture and death, according to human rights groups.
In 2002, a group of Falun Gong adherents, who were repeatedly demonized in the Chinese media, decided to take action. They climbed a pair of television poles in the city of Changchun during primetime TV and hijacked the signal, broadcasting a message about the communist regime’s elimination campaign toward the spiritual practice.
Loftus said he and his team are humbled by the country’s decision to select the film.
“It is the first time Canada has put forward an animated film, a documentary, or a Mandarin language film for the international feature category,” he said.
The Chinese Theatre in Hollywood screened the film back in June, and some audience members were moved to tears.
Loftus told The Epoch Times at the time that he learned about the story from his colleague Daxiong, a longtime Falun Gong practitioner and comic book artist known for his work on the “Justice League” and “Star Wars” franchises.
The documentary tells the story through Daxiong’s perspective, who leads the audience through his journey of remembering the events that took place 20 years ago.
After the disruption of the TV broadcast, police raids ensued as the regime targeted all Falun Gong adherents in the area, regardless of their involvement in the plot. At least six died at the hands of police, according to Minghui.org, a U.S.-based website that provides information on the persecution in China.
Only one core participant in the broadcast takeover made it out of China—after 10 years in prison—while another is expected to be released this year after being locked away for 20 years.
Daxiong was targeted in the police raids that followed the event, and he was forced to flee his hometown Changchun and eventually move to Canada after being detained three times by the regime.
