Canada selects Deepa Mehta’s Funny Boy as international feature entry for 2021 Oscars

Canada has selected Deepa Mehta’s Funny Boy (2020) as its entry for the Best International Feature Film category at next year’s Oscars.

Mehta’s Water (2005), starring Lisa Ray and John Abraham, had earlier been selected as Canada’s entry for the 79th Oscars.

Funny Boy, produced by David Hamilton and Hussain Amarshi, is an adaptation of Shyam Selvadurai’s 1994 novel set in Sri Lanka during the 1970s and 1980s. The coming-of-age tale follows Arjie, a young Tamil who comes to terms with his own sexuality and deals with communal tension between the Tamils and Sinhalese ahead of the Sri Lankan civil war.

Mehta and Selvadurai have co-written the screenplay, The cast includes Arush Nand, Brandon Ingram, Nimmi Harasgama, Ali Kazmi, Agam Darshi, Seema Biswas and Shivantha Wijesinha.

Funny Boy, which is being distributed by Ava DuVernay's Array Releasing, is due to be released in select theatres in the US and Canada in December. It will make its debut on Netflix in the US, the UK, New Zealand and Australia on 10 December. The feature will also be premiered on Canadian television on 4 December on the CBC network.

The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony will be held on 25 April 2021, while the nominations are due to be announced on 15 March.