Lofty Sky Pictures groundbreaking filmmaker Jason Loftus’ (“Ask No Questions”) latest film, the powerful animated documentary “Eternal Spring (長春)”  will make its West coast premiere at this year’s Dances With Films (June 9 – 19, 2022), on Wednesday, June 15 with a 7p.m. premiere at the TCL Chinese 6 Theaters (in the Hollywood & Highland complex in Los Angeles). “Eternal Spring (長春)” is a multiple award winner, most recently having won the Hot Docs Audience Award for best film and the Rogers Audience Award for best Canadian film, and both the audience and jury awards for International Documentary Feature Film at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival. (Loft Sky Pictures, 2022)

This extraordinary harmony of animation and documentary has been awarded and acclaimed across Europe in its Film Festival run thus far for its groundbreaking animation – and of particular note, has been its incredible comic-book-style animation that transports the viewer into the brave and heroic world of a group of Falun Gong practitioners. “Eternal Spring ( 長春)” with its story of survival at all costs & battle for human rights continues to draw powerful comparisons to beloved Oscar nominee “Flee.”

This Canadian film was made for theatrical (it is in 2.39 Cinema 4K and audiences are loving it on the big screen thus far from its international film festival run), most recently to sold out audiences at the New York Human Rights Film Festival on May 23 at Lincoln Center & May 24 at IFC Center (one of 10 official selections and the US premiere), and again on May 31 and June 2 at Krakow Film Festival (Oscar qualifying International Documentary Competition, Polish Premiere). 

“Eternal Spring (長春)” – Confronted with government denunciations and human rights violations against their spiritual practice, a group of Chinese activists executes a bold and perilous plan to hack into state television.

“Eternal Spring (長春)” – In March 2002, a state TV signal in China is hijacked by members of banned spiritual group Falun Gong. Their goal is to counter the government narrative about their practice. In the aftermath, police raids sweep Changchun City and comic book illustrator Daxiong (Justice League, Star Wars), a Falun Gong practitioner, is forced to flee. He arrives in North America, blaming the hijacking for worsening a violent repression. His views are challenged when he meets the lone surviving participant to have escaped China, now living in Seoul, South Korea.

Combining present-day footage with 3D animation inspired by Daxiong’s art, Eternal Spring retraces the event on its 20th anniversary, and brings to life an unprecedented story of defiance, harrowing eyewitness accounts of persecution, and an exhilarating tale of determination to speak up for political and religious freedoms, no matter the cost.