China’s entry to the upcoming Oscars has been deemed ineligible, meaning the country will not compete for the best international feature film award for the first time in more than 20 years.
The country had submitted The Sinking Of The Lisbon Maru, a documentary directed by Fang Li, which chronicles a tragic incident in the Second World War.
However, as the film features interviews with British survivors and descendants of the victims, the amount of non-English dialogue proved insufficient for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas). Their rules state that international feature film submissions much have “a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track”.
As the deadline for submission in the category was October 2, it means China will not have a feature up for consideration in the category for the first time since 2002.
It would have marked the first time a non-fiction feature had been entered by China, which previously secured nominations in the category with Ju Don in 1991 and Hero in 2003, both directed by Zhang Yimou.
However, the film remains eligible for the best documentary feature Oscar and will begin its qualifying run at the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica on November 22, after screening at the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles on November 18.
The film centres on an incident that took place on October 2, 1942, when Japanese freighter the Lisbon Maru carrying 1,816 British prisoners of war, was torpedoed in the East China Sea by an unwitting US submarine. As the ship sank, Japanese forces battened down the British POWs in the holds, leaving them to die. Some prisoners broke free at the last moment, meaning 384 were rescued by local Chinese fishermen, while 828 died.
The film received its world premiere at the opening feature of the Shanghai International Film Festival in June and received a local release on September 6.
The entry would have marked a departure for China, which has submitted blockbuster features to the category such as sci-fi action adventure The Wandering Earth 2 by Frant Gwo and period spy thriller Cliff Walkers by Zhang Yimou.
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