Brandon Ingram, left, and Rehan Mudannayake in Deepa Mehta's Funny Boy.Handout
Telefilm Canada says Deepa Mehta’s “Funny Boy” has been disqualified from competing for best international feature film at the Oscars because it falls short of the non-English language requirements.
The Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences notified Telefilm that Mehta’s coming-of-age story, originally billed as being mostly in the Tamil language, doesn’t meet the criteria.
Best international feature is awarded to a film produced outside the United States with “predominantly” non-English dialogue.
Telefilm says the “technical discrepancy” means “Funny Boy” will instead be submitted for consideration in the best picture and best screenplay categories.
Mehta issued a statement saying she was “surprised” by the Academy’s decision to pull the film from the international competition.
A representative for Telefilm says it was the “Funny Boy” producers who carried the responsibility of determining whether their film crossed the 50 per cent threshold of non-English dialogue.
A replacement film for Canada’s submission in the same category is being considered, Telefilm says.
The organization said the voting process for its international feature submission changed this year and two choices were picked. The second film is under review by the Academy and Telefilm says it “will be announced shortly.”
The Academy has disqualified other films for the same reason, including Portugal’s entry “Listen” this week, which fell short of non-English requirements.
Last year Nigerian film “Lionheart” was pulled from the category for being largely in English, even though English is the official language of Nigeria.
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