Deepa Mehta's film Funny Boy has been disqualified as an entry from the Academy Awards International Feature category for failing to meet the foreign language dialogue threshold.
The film was entered as a Tamil language film as Canada's official submission, but was found to fall far short of the foreign language dialogue requirement of at least 50%, with Tamil and Sinhala dialogue making up only 37%.
Funny Boy is based on the novel of the same name by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Shyam Selvadurai, about a gay Tamil boy growing up in Colombo in the run up to the 1983 Black July pogroms. The film has been widely criticised by Tamil community groups for the failure to cast Tamils in the main cast and for butchering the Tamil language in the film. Deepa Mehta's past affiliation with Sri Lankan leaders including Mahinda Rajapkasa has also come under criticism, as well as her recent comments lashing out against criticism. A petition against the film by Queer Tamil Collective has gained over 3000 signatures.
See: "Soft power is still power": Mehta, Funny Boy and the Tamil genocide
The film will still be entered for the Academy Awards under general categories including Best Film.
