Beans and Funny Boy are two different coming of age stories up for the Best Motion Picture category at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards.

From director Tracey Deer and co-writer Meredith Vuchnich, Beans is a story tracking a young Mohawk girl who is forced to grow up quickly during the Oka Crisis.

Meanwhile, director Deepa Mehta and co-writer Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy – which is based on Selvadurai’s novel of the same name – examines a young boy’s sexual awakening as political tensions escalate between the Tamils and Sinhalese.

Following part one of Playback‘s Best Motion Picture contenders coverage, Deer and Mehta discuss their respective projects.

Stay tuned for more CSAs stories this week.

Beans

Tracey Deer (director/co-writer)

Up for: Five – with Deer also up for the John Dunning Best First Feature Film Award. The film is also in the running for casting, cinematography and sound mixing.

Playback: How long did it take to bring your project to screen?

Tracey Deer: The idea itself is 30 years old, after living through the Oka Crisis and dreaming of one day becoming a filmmaker. The actual creative process took about eight years. We worked on the script for years before we felt it said everything we wanted it to say.

PB: How did you pitch your film to funders? 

TD: We told them it’s a coming-of-age drama about a young Mohawk girl that takes place during the summer of the 1990 Oka Crisis. It would be inspired by my own personal experiences as well as actual historical events that transpired.

PB: Tell us one surprising fact or story someone wouldn’t know about your film.

TD: It’s incredibly difficult to close a provincial bridge for a film shoot. We were able to shoot on the Mercier Bridge, which is the same bridge that was shut down all those years ago, because the Mohawk construction company in charge of repairs allowed us to shoot adjacent to their repair site. One span of the bridge was closed, but the other span was packed with traffic all day. There were angry commuters constantly honking or revving their engines and some even yelled hateful racial slurs at our Mohawk extras. All of this on our first day of production! It was a wild way to begin, but we all persevered, gelled quickly as a team, and created some of the best scenes of the film over those two days.

PB: Beans is a story with personal roots. With regards to taking on the project – what are you most proud of?

TD: I set out to recreate some of the most traumatic moments of my life, but I didn’t want to do so at any cost. The challenge in telling this story was to figure out how to shoot it so that we had fun every day, despite the heaviness of much of the content. I’m proud of all the steps we took as a team to achieve that goal.

PB: And pitch yourself – why should your film win Best Motion Picture?

TD: Being named among the best is wonderful recognition of all the heart, soul and talent that our dedicated crew and phenomenal cast brought to the project. It was a joy to work with them all in the creation process, and I think that joy is evident on screen. How Beans measures up next to the other outstanding films that are nominated will be up to the voters, but I know that our team brought their very best to the project so they are all winners to me.

PB: And finally, what’s next for you? What else are you working on? 

TD: I have another feature that I’ve just finished writing, I’m developing a television series and I’m episodic directing as well.

Funny Boy

Deepa Mehta (director/co-writer)

Quick facts: Mehta previously won Original Screenplay at the Genie Awards in 2003 for Bollywood/Hollywood. She was also previously nominated in the Original Screenplay category for Heaven on Earth and Water, the latter also saw her nominated for Achievement in Direction. Prior to Funny Boy, she was nominated for Achievement in Direction in 2013 for Midnight’s Children.

Up for: Nine prizes, such as Adapted Screenplay (Mehta alongside Selvadurai), direction, sound mixing, visual effects, make-up, music – original score, sound editing and Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Agam Darshi.

PB: How long did it take to bring your project to screen?

Deepa Mehta: I became interested in the story immediately after first reading Shyam Selvadurai’s novel, Funny Boy, 25 years ago. I inquired about the rights but they were taken at the time by a British director. Over the ensuing years Shyam tried to find a Sri Lankan filmmaker, preferably Tamil to mount the project but no one came forward so he finally decided to write the first draft of the screenplay himself and brought it to me to direct three years ago. We co-wrote the second draft in about six months keeping Shyam’s original take on historical events intact including one alteration in the timeline, which Shyam wanted to do for the dramatic purpose of highlighting the Tamil/Sinhala conflict. As Shyam has said his novel is a fictional story only loosely based on real characters and events. This provides a greater latitude for interpretation than would be the case if we were creating a documentary. It took another year to finance and do in-depth casting calls in Canada, England, the U.S., India and Sri Lanka. Then another long year obtaining the Sri Lankan government permissions which are mandatory for all foreign productions wishing to shoot a film in Sri Lanka. The National Film Commission was extremely hesitant to give the greenlight. The homosexual relationship between a Tamil and Sinhalese was an anathema, homosexuality still being a criminal offence in Sri Lanka. The exposure of the Tamil/Sinhalese conflict and the inhuman treatment of the Tamils by the Sinhalese was also a key issue. Fortunately, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Prime Minister at the time was an admirer of the book and his wife Maitree, a professor at the Universities of Kelaniya and Colombo, even taught Shyam’s book. They loved the script and were instrumental in encouraging the bureaucracy to accept the filming of the story and after three long delays we began filming and completed the shoot prior to the installation of a highly conservative government who would likely have prevented the film from being made.

PB: How did you pitch your film to funders? And what was your budget?

DM: On a creative level, I felt strongly that the time was now to do a film that essentially built bridges between communities in war-torn erstwhile colonized countries. Divisiveness on the basis of race, culture and sexuality must surely end. Also it was an opportunity to inform the world of the terrible time Tamils in Sri Lanka had had. This is not unlike the Palestinians, the people of Rwanda and many other countries that have faced civil strife. It was an opportunity for Shyam, myself and the producers, David Hamilton and Hussain Amarshi, to make a plea for the healing between diverse cultural groups to at least begin. The first stage in this healing is always to expose more broadly the basic truth of the atrocities that had taken place and the oppression of both Tamils and homosexuals in Sri Lanka. The budget for a film of this scale was a modest one. Shooting in Sri Lanka is still relatively inexpensive and we had no big name stars but rather a group of extremely talented actors who believed in the project. Our many collaborators provide the creative elements out of passion rather than pecuniary interests. Sting was extremely generous in allowing us to use his version of ‘Every Breath You Take’ for a relatively small license fee – he went on to say that he loved the dance rendition we did and felt it was the best use of this music he had seen in any film. Howard Shore composed the music out of sheer goodwill. Doug Koch, whose brilliant cinematography is being raved about the world over, gave us his complete focus and skill. Truly a collaborative piece done for a very modest amount.

PB: Tell us one surprising fact or story someone wouldn’t know about your film.

DM: Many people think that Funny Boy is based on non-fictional events and was written by a Tamil. In fact the book is a work of fiction, loosely autobiographical, written by an author who is of mixed Sri Lankan ethnicity. Shyam’s mother is Sinhalese, and his father is Tamil. He was brought up in Columbo which is largely Sinhalese and Shyam himself does not speak Tamil.

PB: As well, in terms of deal with ARRAY Releasing – how exactly did that come about? And has this spurred any collaborations with Ava DuVernay?

DM: Agam Darshi (a fab actor who is nominated for a CSA for Best Supporting Actress), who plays Aunty Radha, introduced me to Ava who was intrigued enough to want to see the film and provide us with advice on where to take it next as far as festivals were concerned. I sent her a fine cut. Ava loved it, called it a ‘gem’ and wanted her company ARRAY to distribute it – the rest is history. We feel very grateful to ARRAY for exposing the film and the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka to the world.

PB: What was your reaction to the news that Funny Boy wouldn’t be eligible to qualify as Canada’s Oscar selection?

DM: Shock and dismay. ARRAY and Ava felt very strongly that Funny Boy had an excellent shot in being shortlisted for the Oscars Best International Film Category and the trades had recognized us as one of the front-runners. So to hear from AMPAS that there wasn’t enough Tamil in the film was a complete and utter devastation. (We found out subsequently that the English lyrics in some of the songs were being considered as part of the dialogue and this pushed the film towards its ineligibility – 46% Tamil and 54% English).

PB: Additionally, last year saw some members of the Tamil community call for a boycott of Funny Boy for not featuring Tamil actors in its lead roles as well as criticism over the film’s depiction of the Tamil language. What was your reaction to the criticism and what steps did you take to address these concerns?

DM: While shooting in Sri Lanka I had been warned to expect a strong backlash from the Sinhalese community against the film particularly in its exposure of the atrocities against the Tamils by the Sinhalese. I felt that the Tamil community would embrace the opportunity to tell their story to a world, which is largely ignorant of the crimes perpetrated against their people. For the most part we have not heard a peep from the Sinhalese and the Tamil community by and large have been very supportive including a formal approbation by The Canadian Tamil Congress. As is common in today’s environment a small group of people have taken umbrage to the film on a “representation” principle. The two issues raised were the diction of the actors speaking Tamil and the alleged absence of Tamil actors in the film.

Authenticity in casting has always been important to me for all my films. Authenticity however means more than simply placing actors who originate from the community of the characters in the story. More importantly one must ensure that the acting itself represents authentically the basic nature of the characters in the story. If one ignores this factor in support of casting only within a certain community, authenticity can quickly turn into tokenism. To walk that line is integral to casting in any film. I do of course prefer to find the talent within the community the character represents. But it does not always work out. In Water, the main character is an Indian Hindu child widow. Ultimately, I cast a young Sri Lankan girl who spoke neither Hindi nor English and she learned all of her dialogue phonetically. She was brilliant and authentic.

We did an in-depth and extensive search for Tamil actors in five countries over a two year period – Canada, Sri Lanka, India, U.S. and Britain. We found two superb Tamil actors in Canada – Suthan and Jeyapragash – but sadly both had to pull out for personal reasons after being confirmed by us for the roles. Sendhil and Sunkrish both Tamil’s from the U.S. would have made fine Appa’s but they had issues which prevented them from coming on board. Siddharth an Indian Tamil broke his shoulder and Madhavan didn’t like the role. Parvathy and Nithya were slated to play Radha but both bowed out due to conflict of dates. Ultimately, we did cast seven Tamil actors including  Nimmi (the female lead), a mixed Tamil/Sinhalese from Sri Lanka. I would have preferred to find more Tamil actors but it was not from a lack of effort. In the end I am supremely satisfied with the performances as being representative of the characters they are meant to portray.

As for language and diction we were quite aware during shooting that we would likely have to dub the voices of the characters Ammachi, Radha Aunty and Appa or at a minimum do a lot of work on their voices during post production. We had multiple screenings of the film for Tamil speakers once the editing was complete to test out the work we had been doing on the voices. We invited a small group of what we believed were trusted friends including some from Tamil community, media and others from the film industry to view an early cut of the film. We recognized off the top that we were aware that some of the language still needed to be worked on. In spite of the weak Tamil diction all of them were moved by the film itself, with some even feeling inspired to visit Sri Lanka. Prior to this screening a group of Tamils in Colombo – comprised of activists, students, teachers, homemakers – had seen the film in a series of underground screenings. Their responses on social media and in private letters were overwhelming in their positivity. Finally, they said it was a film that will show the world what the Tamils went through and are still going through in Sri Lanka. I was also eager to show the film to the Sri Lankan diaspora – activists, journalists, writers and professors – who although not nearly as impacted by the struggle currently nevertheless may have in the past suffered the atrocities represented in the film.

Unfortunately, the ensuing pandemic delayed the studio booking we had in Sri Lanka for six months. In between, the trailer had to be released by ARRAY to meet its Netflix deadline with the unfinished Tamil. At this moment certain people who had been brought in to see the early cut chose to write extensively about the ‘bad’ Tamil in the film and how a Sri Lankan Burgher had ended up playing Arjie, a Pakistani-Canadian playing Appa and a Sikh-Canadian playing Radha Aunty. Unfortunately, this set off a course of events that upset a section of the Tamil community who then rallied against a film that was not yet finished, that they had not yet seen. It was mostly upsetting because suddenly the people the film set out to serve the most, overlooked the film’s essential message about self-determination on a sexual level and a community and cultural level. Thankfully, during the brief lifting of lockdown in November of last year, we managed to get into the studio and finally finish the ADR and release the film on Netflix and CBC properly.

PB: And pitch yourself – why should your film win Best Motion Picture?

DM: I think the appropriate pitch is the film itself. The work should stand or fall on its own merits.

PB: And finally, what’s next for you? What else are you working on?

DM: I’m in the midst of negotiating a horror film – I’m serious! And meanwhile having a good time mentoring in a small way some really talented young filmmakers. (Both POC and white!)

Image of Beans courtesy of EMAfilms and Funny Boy courtesy of Maithili Venkataraman

Image of Tracey Deer courtesy of Dory Chamoun and Deepa Mehta courtesy of Janick Laurent