National Award winning filmmaker Vetrimaaran’s critically acclaimed Tamil drama “Visaranai” produced by Dhanush was on Thursday announced as India’s official pick for Oscars 2017 in the Foreign Language Film category.

“Out of the 29 movies in the competition, ‘Visaranai’ was chosen by the jury unanimously,” filmmaker Ketan Mehta, jury chairperson of Film Festival of India (FFI), said here.

A post from the official Twitter handle of Vetrimaaran’s banner Grassroot Film Company, read: “We’re on cloud9!!! ‘Visaranai’ has been chosen to represent India at the Oscars.”

The critically-acclaimed film is based on police brutality and is based on the novel “Lock Up” by auto-rickshaw driver-turned-writer M. Chandrakumar. 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.

“Visaranai” features Dinesh, Samuthirakani, Ajay Ghosh and Kishore in the lead. Based on lives of four migrant workers who are accused of a crime they never committed. 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 earned critical acclaim earlier last year when it had its world premiere at 72nd Venice International Film Festival. It also won three National Awards including best Tamil film.

[Watch Video]: Visaaranai – Official Trailer

The film was produced by Dhanush, who had released the film under his home banner Wunderbar Films.

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.