After director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” garnered every prestigious critic awards and the Oscar last year, Japan hopes to repeat its success with Chie Hayakawa’s debut feature film, “Plan 75” which government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be euthanized to remedy an aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.

“Tora-San” veteran actress Chieko Baisho stars as one of the senior citizens taking part, alongside Hayato Isomura and Yumi Kawai. “Plan 75” premiered in the Un Certain Regard strand of this year’s Cannes film festival where it picked up a special mention in the Caméra d’or.

The film was produced by Eiko Mizuno-Gray and Jason Gray of Loaded Films, as well as Frédéric Corvez and Maéva Savinien of France’s Urban Factory.

Besides last year’s win, Japan has won one other time with Yojiro Takita’s “Departures” in 2008 and has been nominated 12 times from 69 submissions.

Additionally, the country picked up three honorary awards during the 1950’s – “Rashomon,” “Gate of Hell,” and “Samurai, The Legend Of Musashi.” Urban Sales is handling international sales.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue, and it can include animated and documentary features.

The foreign films have to be released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists will be announced on December 21 with the final five nominees announced on January 24, 2022.

The 95th Academy Awards will take place on March 12, 2023 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.