Oscars 2025: China to send WWII doc The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru for Best International Feature
China selects The Sinking of Lisbon Maru for Best International Feature submission
Oscars 2025:China has selected a film titled The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru to represent it at the 97th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category. The film is a World War II documentary on an under-documented event in which an unmarked Japanese troop transport ship carrying British POWs (prisoners of war) started sinking and Chinese fishermen scurried to their rescue.
The film is by director Fang Li. This is the first time that China has sent a documentary to represent the country at the biggest global awards.
The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru: The Plot
The film opened at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June. It is about an 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.
While a large percentage of people went down with the ship, close to 380 other British POWs were saved by nearby Chinese fishermen, who risked their lives to rescue and shelter the prisoners from Japanese forces.
Fang Li, recently while discussing his film said that he travelled 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 told Chinese media outlets that he interviewed over 130 descendants and collected tens of thousands of historical photos to piece it all together.
The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru was released in China on September 6. The film has good ratings and has been received well at the box office.
