Film by Sian Heder
CODA is a 2021 coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Sian Heder. An English-language remake of the 2014 French-Belgian film La Famille Bélier, it stars Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi, the child of deaf adults (CODA) and only hearing member of her family, who attempts to help her family's struggling fishing business while pursuing her aspirations to become a singer.
The movie uses deaf actors to play the deaf characters, who, along with Jones, communicate using American Sign Language. Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant (in his feature film debut), and Marlee Matlin are featured in supporting roles. An international co-production between the United States and France, with Philippe Rousselet producing, as La Famille Bélier, it was filmed on location in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the United States.
CODA had its world premiere on January 28, 2021, at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where Apple acquired its distribution rights for a festival-record $25 million. The film was released through the Apple TV+ streaming service on August 14, 2021. It received largely positive reviews from critics, who praised Heder's screenplay and Kotsur's performance, although feedback from deaf viewers was polarized. It was named one of the top 10 films of 2021 by the American Film Institute and has since been cited as among the best films of the 2020s.
CODA won numerous awards, including all three of its nominations at the 94th Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Kotsur, and Best Adapted Screenplay, becoming the seventh Best Picture winner to win every award for which it was nominated. It became both the first film distributed by a streaming service and the first film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to win Best Picture. Kotsur also became the first male deaf actor to win an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. The film also won the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture in addition to the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
A stage musical adaptation was in the works as of 2024.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.