China has selected The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru, a World War II documentary by director Fang Li, as its representative at the 97th Academy Awards in the best international feature film category. The pick marks the first time since China began sending titles to the Oscars in 1979 that it has put forward a documentary, but the choice also continues a trend of China picking movies that stir nationalistic sentiments at home.
The movie, which was the opening film of the Shanghai International Film Festival in June, resurrects a relatively obscure episode from 1942 during WWII, when an unmarked Japanese troop transport ship — The Lisbon Maru — was torpedoed by the U.S. navy. The vessel was being used to transport prisoners of war at the time, and over 800 British troops died as the ship went down, either from drowning or Japanese gunfire. Nearly 380 other British POWs were saved by nearby Chinese fishermen, who risked their lives to rescue and shelter the prisoners from Japanese forces. The film finds its emotional core in the bravery and sacrifices of these ordinary Chinese heroes.
Feng, the film’s director and producer, traveled extensively to piece together the story of the ship’s sinking and the experience of survivors. The director, who has a long career in the Chinese industry and also happens to hold experience as an ocean surveyor, has told Chinese media outlets that he traveled across China, the UK, Japan, the U.S. and Canada, tracking down surviving POWs or their families. He also worked to discover what’s believed to be the actual shipwreck of the Lisbon Maru, documenting the process on film. Feng has said he eventually interviewed over 130 descendants and collected tens of thousands of historical photos to flesh out the film’s story. Other voices in the film include the only known living Chinese fisherman who participated in the rescue, as well as the first historian to research the episode in-depth.
The Sinking of Lisbon Maru has become a word-of-mouth hit at home in China after its release on Sept. 6. It has remarkably high user ratings of 9.3 on movie site Douban and 9.6 on ticketing app Maoyan. According to Maoyan, the film has earned about $5 million in Chinese cinemas — an uncommonly strong performance for a doc in the country.
In the 25 years since China began participating in the Oscars race, it has been nominated in the best international film category twice. Zhang Yimou scored his country its first Oscar nom in 1990 with the Gong Li-starring romantic tragedy Ju Dou, and he later repeated the feat with the Wuxia classic Hero in 2002. No Chinese film has ever won an Oscar.
