Vetrimaran’s Visaranai had earlier won three National Awards including best Tamil film. Vetrimaran’s Visaranai had earlier won three National Awards including best Tamil film.

Tamil film Visaranai, directed by Vetrimaran and produced by Dhanush, is India’s official entry for Academy Awards 2017 in the Foreign Language Film category. The film had earlier won three National Awards including best Tamil film.

The critically-acclaimed film is based on police brutality and is adapted from M Chandrakumar’s novel Lock Up. This choice has for the second year in running bucked the trend of choosing Hindi language films for the prestigious awards. Earlier Tamil films such as Jeans, Indian, Kurithipunal, Devar Magan, Anjali, Nayagan, Deiva Magan were chosen as India’s official entries for Oscar awards.

Based on lives of four migrant workers who are accused of a crime they never committed, Visaranai shows these migrant workers from Tamil Nadu being picked on by the police in Guntur. This leads to them being enmeshed in a web of crime and politics and they are finally killed in an encounter. The movie has similarities to some real-life events.

The film was earlier chosen in the competition section of 72nd Venice Film Festival. Dhanush, who produced the film under his banner Wunderbar Productions, had expressed pride after the film bagged three National Awards. The film was adjudged best Tamil film, actor-director Samuthirakani — who made the super hit “Nadodigal” — bagged the best supporting actor award for his role in Visaranai, while the thriller also won the best editing award for late TE Kishore.

In 2016, India had sent Marathi film Court as the official entry for Oscars. The 89th Academy Awards is scheduled to take place in February 2017 in Los Angeles.

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