Maxime Giroux’s Felix et Meira has been selected as Canada’s foreign language Oscar entry, Telefilm Canada announced Friday.

“Félix et Meira, a love story about two people from vastly different worlds, has moved Canadian and international audiences,” said Carolle Brabant, executive director of Telefilm Canada in a statement. “Screened at more than 50 festivals around the world, this story with universal themes has also picked up many awards. It’s now in the running for an Oscar nomination, and on behalf of Telefilm Canada, I wish the film’s talented crew the best of luck.”

Felix et Meria bowed at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Best Canadian Feature Film prize.

In the past six years, four Canadian films have received nominations in the Best Foreign Language Film category: Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar, Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle and the Poland-Germany-Canada copro In Darkness from Agnieszka Holland.

In acknowledging the choice of his film in a press conference following the annoucement, Giroux emphasized the local nature of the film’s story and challenge of making a film about a community that is close-knit. “It’s a Montreal film, in French, English and Yiddish,” he said, adding he was finding it tough to express himself fully in English: “I guess wow in English is okay – wow! I’m really proud of all the actors and technicians – it was a film made with a small budget and quite a lot of challenges. Writing this script was difficult because it’s not easy to write about his community.

“It’s going to be an honour and quite a lot of fun also – I hope we are going to go all the way through but you never know,” he added.