TORONTO — Fifteen films are moving forward in the race for best international feature film at the Oscars, but Canada's submission isn't one of them.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the short list for that category and several others, but "14 Days 12 Nights" did not make the cut.
The French-language Canadian drama by director Jean-Philippe Duval and producer Antonello Cozzolino competed in the race as a replacement for Deepa Mehta's "Funny Boy."
Mehta's film was originally submitted to the category but was later disqualified because it failed to meet the Academy's eligibility requirements due to the amount of English dialogue in the film.
A Canadian co-production is still in the running in the category, however — Philippe Lacote's "Night of the Kings" — although the academy has it listed as an Ivory Coast film.
"Night of the Kings" is a France/Ivory Coast/Canada/Senegal co-production about a young man at Ivory Coast’s infamous MACA prison.
The 15 films chosen in the category will advance to the next round of voting for the 93rd Academy Awards.
Films from 93 countries were eligible in the category.
The 2021 Oscars will take place later than usual, on April 25, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anne Dorval stars in "14 Days 12 Nights" as a Canadian woman who travels to Vietnam to meet the birth mother of her late adopted daughter.
"Funny Boy" is based on the award-winning Canadian novel by Shyam Selvadurai, about a Tamil boy growing up gay in Sri Lanka during the deadly Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in the 1970s and ’80s.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2021.
Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press
