Funny Boy: Canada’s entry to the 2021 Oscars
Oscar nominated Canadian movie director Deepa Mehta’s adaptation of Shyam Selvadurai’s award-winning book Funny Boy will hit the screen next month – and is set to become one of this year’s most rewarding new movies.
It has already been selected as Canada’s submission in the Best International Film category for the 2021 Academy Awards.
Mehta is the creator of other well-known movies such as the acclaimed trilogy Earth (1998), Fire (1996) and Water (2005) – as well as the adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (2012). Her 2005 movie Water was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Funny Boy is a coming-of-age movie – an exploration of identities, both sexual and ethnic and also the response to intolerance – set against the backdrop of the turbulence and ethnic violence of Sri Lanka in the 1980s.
Selvadurai’s novel won the Smith Books/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1995 and the Lambda Award for Best Gay Men’s Fiction in 1996. Shortlisted for Canada’s Giller Prize in 1994, it was also selected in 1996 as an American Library Association Notable Book.
Selvadurai was born and grew up in Sri Lanka – his father was the national tennis player D.D.N. Selvadurai and his mother was a graduate of the Colombo Medical College, Dr Christine de Silva- but now lives in Canada. He wrote Funny Boy – a coming of age novel that is, in effect, a semi-autobiographical account of growing up gay in Sri Lanka.
It is the story of a young boy Arjie who, growing up in a conservative middle class Tamil family in Colombo, is made fun of as a child for his ‘girly-boy’ ways. Later, in his teenage years he is tormented by his peers for his sexual preference and is even rebuked by the family for going against the norms of society although he always has the support of his young aunt Radha – until she is packed off overseas after an arranged marriage that is forced on her to break off her love affair with a Sinhalese boy Anil.
As the story unfolds, one sees the growing ethnic intolerance and hostility between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils living on our small island nation – which culminated in the ethnic violence of 1983.
Shot on location last year in Sri Lanka, the screenplay for the movie was jointly written by Mehta and Selvadurai. Its evocative musical score was composed by Canada’s three-time Oscar-winner Howard Shore.
Brandon Ingram and Rehan Mudannayake in Funny Boy
Produced by David Hamilton and Hussain Amarshi, Funny Boy features Brandon Ingram as the movie’s central character Arjie. The cast features Sri Lankan actors Nimmi Harasgama (as Amma), Shivantha Wijesinha (as Jegan), Rehan Mudannayake (as Shehan), Tracy Holsinger (as Kanthi Aunty) and Hidaayath Hazeer (as Arjie’s older brother Diggy).
Other starring roles are played by famous overseas actors Ali Kazmi (as Appa), Agam Darshi (as Radha Aunty) and Seema Biswas (as Arjie’s matriarchal grandmother). The role of Arjie as a small child is ably played by young Arush Nand.
The movie is scheduled to air exclusively in Canada on CBC TV on Friday, December 4 at 8 p.m. (8.30 NT) – and thereafter stream (for free!) on CBC Gem. This screening is the result of a partnership between CBC and Telefilm Canada. The movie rights for the United States, UK, Australia and New Zealand have been acquired by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing who will handle distribution through Netflix.
Describing Funny Boy as ‘a quintessentially Canadian story’ Mehta says “For me, Funny Boy is actually not a very funny film. This story could have only been written by a Sri Lankan who had emigrated to Canada. The objectivity that Canada provides, through which we can look at our respective homelands, is I think this country’s greatest gift. It’s what I hope will give us a global understanding of the nature of the ‘other.’”
It will certainly be a movie worth seeing – and one that will be talked about for a long time to come.
Don’t mess with the Grand Diva: A still from the movie. Pix by Vidur Bharatram