A version of this interview with “Eternal Spring” director Jason Loftus first appeared in the International Film edition of awards magazine TheWrap.
Toronto-based filmmaker Jason Loftus tells the story of the takeover of a Chinese state television station in 2002 by members of the banned Falun Gong movement, and to do so, he enlisted the help of Chinese-born comic book artist Daxiong, who had to flee the country after the government crackdown. The film is Canada’s entry into the Oscars’ Best International Picture race, but it’s also eligible in the documentary and animated feature races, following in the footsteps of last year’s triple-nominated “Flee.”
How did you get involved with Daxiong and with this story?
I was making a kung fu video game a few years back, and it featured hand-drawn comic book illustrations. We learned about this artist who was living in New York at the time, originally from China, which he had drawn for “Justice League” and “Star Wars.” So we think he’s perfect: the guy has a cultural background, as well as this incredible artistic ability.
He was working on this game with us, and I learned that he came from a city in Northeast China, Changchun, the same hometown as my wife and producing partner, Masha. She had no connection to any persecuted or dissident group, because she was the daughter of a mid-level government official in China. So hearing what Daxiong had gone through under her nose in her own city really touched her.
For me, I had an interest in Eastern philosophy and meditation in high school, and I was introduced to Falun Gong at that time. So when the government in ’99 said, “These people are evil and dangerous and we have to get rid of them,” he was not reconciled to what he had witnessed. And when Daxiong fell into our lap, we felt it was an important story to tell and unique from an artistic and cinematic perspective.
At that time, did you imagine using its animation to tell the story?
Not to the extent of what we see. We explored different things, but I liked the idea of Daxiong-style animation to bring the story to life. So there was a question of, “Do we see this as a dramatized true story?” But the documentary element just begged to be a part of it, because it’s an ongoing human rights issue and that can ground it.
I thought that animation can be used very effectively in a documentary, but what excited me was the idea that animation wouldn’t just be a decision of the invisible hand of the director. I felt there was an opportunity to pull back the curtain: We see this artist. He has been tortured, he has lost his home and it is reflected in his pen. As soon as he starts drawing, you can see that.
It created, I have to admit, quite a challenge from a production standpoint. If you’re making a traditional documentary, you’re shooting 100 footage, you’re watching, you’re sitting in the editing room and you split it up and let the story come naturally. But if you’re going to animate something, you lock down the whole story beforehand and have your storyboards. Animation is time consuming and expensive, and you don’t want to throw any of that away. So we took this leap of faith because we were watching Daxiong as he created the work and animated, and of course we were showing the animation process on screen, which means we were already animating things while making the documentary pieces. We were doing both at the same time with a kind of knock on wood and cross our fingers approach that it all fell into place somehow.
Was Daxiong on board from the start? He is exploring events that essentially forced him to leave his country.
Yeah, I think he was looking for some kind of closure. She had these feelings that she survived and other people didn’t. And I think sometimes in that situation you feel like you want to do something. You feel like, “How come someone else died and I didn’t?” I think he wanted to get an idea of what had happened.
The film’s timeline is quite complex. It was complicated?
Yes Yes. I’ve had several people say to me, “Hey, I can feel it bouncing a bit, but everything seems to work.” And my response to that is, if it works, if it ever feels effortless, it’s because an enormous amount of work went into it.
Did you know about the animated documentary “Flee” when you were making this movie?
We were in the late stages of editing the story when it was making the rounds on the festival circuit. One of my friends and story consultants said, “Oh, you really have to see ‘Flee’.” I couldn’t do it at Sundance, and when I was at TIFF we were in the middle of post-production to get it done. finished for a presentation in early 2023.
So I didn’t end up watching it until I was completely done with my production. But he was aware and had seen the trailer and was excited by the fact that it was succeeding. I just wanted people to have no reservations about animated documentaries. And I wasn’t worried that people would think, “Oh, someone did an animated doc last year,” because I knew that what we were doing was unique in the sense of how we were integrating animation.
When you approach a story and come up with something unique and original, I think there is always room for it.
Read more from the International Cinema edition here.
