ETERNAL SPRING March-ing Forward!
Eternal Spring (長春) continued its tremendous run through February and into March. The Vancouver Film Critics Circle named the film Best Canadian Documentary at its annual awards on Feb. 13!
This incredible recognition came days after Eternal Spring director Jason Loftus had earned the Best Director in a Feature Documentary honour from the Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA). Jason and the team are honoured and grateful for the awards!
A big thank-you to the Banff World Media Festival. We learned today that ETERNAL SPRING (長春) has been nominated as the year’s best Social Issues & Current Affairs program!
The 50th Annie Awards took place in Hollywood, and the ASIFA was kind enough to recognize Eternal Spring and director Jason Loftus for a nomination in the “Best Writing in a Feature” category.
Berlin was host to the elegant gala and Cinema for Peace awards, where Eternal Spring was nominated for Political Film of the Year.
Opening Night at Available Light
Eternal Spring enjoyed a trip to the largest festival in Canada’s North–the Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Eternal Spring was the Opening Night Film, and the evening featured an introduction from Yukon’s Minister of Culture, John Streicker.
Director Jason Loftus and Producer Masha Loftus were in attendance for the screening and a special Q&A with Globe & Mail columnist, Johanna Schneller. The film was met by a wonderful turnout and response!
Sold-Out at Kingston Canadian Film Festival
Eternal Spring was thrilled to be part of the largest Canadian-only film festival, the Kingston Canadian Film Festival in Kingston, Ontario, March 2-4. The screening of Eternal Spring sold out and the audience response was outstanding! (The film was among the top five again for audience voting!)
Upcoming Screenings
Next up, Eternal Spring will be at the 47th Cleveland International Film Festival, from March 22nd to April 1st at Playhouse Square.
On Sunday March 19th, Eternal Spring will be in the Censurados Film Festival located in Peru, as part of the Competition of Censored Films.
Starting in early April, Kinepolis Luxembourg, in Luxembourg City, will be showing multiple screenings of Eternal Spring. (Luxembourg is the seventh country with a theatrical release of Eternal Spring, and there are more to come! Stay tuned!)
On April 3rd, Eternal Spring will be the opening film for the “Re-envisioning of Asia,” Asian-Pacific Film Festival of CSUDH in California.
April will also see ETERNAL SPRING (長春) theatrically released in Taiwan! Stay tuned for showtimes and details!
OSCAR THANK-YOUS
Now that the Academy Awards® have passed, we wanted to thank everyone who supported our unforgettable campaign this year! In particular, it was an enormous honour to represent Canada as its official submission to the Best International Feature Category–the Mandarin film, first documentary, and first animated film to receive this distinction!Though we lacked the resources of the biggest players, ETERNAL SPRING (長春) received a lot of love from voters, and we built many friendships along the way.
Ours was was the only film to qualify in all three Oscar® categories in 2023: Best Documentary Feature, Best Animated Feature, and Best International Feature. And Variety had the film ranked inside its Top 25 in all three of these categories (the only self-distributed film in one of these lists)!
Though Eternal Spring didn’t land a nomination, The Hollywood Reporter named it their “Shoulda Been a Contender” for Best Animated Feature.
We extend our congratulations to the nominees and winners, and our heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported our film along the way! Your support for our work meant a great deal, and this exposure has also shone a light on important underlying themes of religious freedom, and freedom of speech in China
Get in touch with our team:
For customer support, please contact marketing@loftysky.com
For sales, please contact Kazz Basma at Sideways Film: Kazz@sidewaysfilm.com
For festival bookings, please contact Kathy Susca at The Film Collaborative: kathy@thefilmcollaborative.org
For non-theatrical screenings, please contact Catherine Mongeau: catherinem@loftysky.com