As Canada’s most recent submission for consideration in the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature category, this film by director Jason Loftus matches the power of a riveting documentary with the visual impact of a graphic novel. It centres on an event that took place in the Chinese city of Changchun in March of 2002, when practitioners of the outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong hijacked a local TV broadcast to protest their persecution by the state. Loftus uses 3D animation based on artwork by renowned illustrator Daxiong (and created by a team that includes Kingston’s Andrew Embury) to visualize the first-hand accounts of many people involved in the action. In so doing, he provides an urgent retelling of this little-known incident, along with a wider history of the Chinese government’s brutal campaign against Falun Gong. The honours for this stirring film include the audience award for best Canadian documentary at Hot Docs and prizes from festivals in Greece, Poland, Iceland and the U.S.