<p><em>CODA </em>a feel-good indie drama about a deaf family defying the odds, pulled off a stunning upset to scoop the top prize at the Oscars Sunday, becoming the first-ever streaming film to win best picture.</p>.<p>Taking its title from the acronym for child of deaf adult,<em> CODA</em> follows high school teen Ruby as she juggles her musical ambitions with her family's dependence on her to communicate with the hearing world.</p>.<p>The film bested tough competition to secure Apple the much-coveted gong, pipping streaming rivals including Netflix as well as Hollywood's traditional studios, and delivering a landmark win for disability representation on the silver screen.</p>.<p>"Thank you to the academy for letting our <em>CODA </em>make history tonight," said producer Philippe Rousselet.</p>.<p><em>CODA </em>was released by Apple TV+ after a bidding war at last year's Sundance independent film festival, where it fetched a record $25 million.</p>.<p>The film by director Sian Heder (<em>Orange is the New Black)</em>, which industry insiders suggest had a budget of just $10 million, shuns big names and expensive locations to concentrate on its crowd-pleasing story of high schooler Ruby Rossi.</p>.<p>Ruby, played by breakout young actress Emilia Jones, has to navigate the usual teenage trials of meeting a boy and falling in love, but with the added challenge of being the only hearing member of her deaf family.</p>.<p>She provides the much-needed link to the hearing world for her family's struggling fishing business in a small seaside town near Boston, but desperately wants to follow her own dreams and go off to college to sing.</p>.<p>Based on the French film "The Belier Family," which controversially used hearing actors to portray deaf characters, <em>CODA </em>opts for authenticity instead, with past Oscar winner Marlee Matlin ("Children of a Lesser God") a familiar face as Ruby's slightly eccentric, but vulnerable, mother.</p>.<p>Ruby's father, played with comic aplomb by Troy Kotsur (himself a winner for best supporting actor), and brother -- a powerful turn from Daniel Durant ("Switched at Birth") -- round out the unconventional foursome, whose on-screen chemistry is evident.</p>.<p><em>CODA </em>beat out rivals in the best picture category including the bookies' favorite <em>The Power of the Dog</em> by Jane Campion, acclaimed family memoir <em>Belfast </em>from Kenneth Branagh, and Steven Spielberg's remake musical "West Side Story."</p>.<p>Other films in the category were Leonardo DiCaprio's <em>Don't Look Up</em>, sci-fi blockbuster <em>Dune</em>, tennis biopic <em>King Richard</em>, Japanese road movie <em>Drive My Car</em>, Los Angeles love letter "Licorice Pizza" and mid-20th century carnival noir "Nightmare Alley."</p>.<p>Heder also won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.</p>.<p>The film's dark horse status was cemented last month when it scooped the prestigious Screen Actors Guild prize for the best performance by a cast -- SAG's equivalent of the Academy's best picture Oscar.</p>.<p>"We're such a tight cast, so it was a lovely prize to win," Jones, who along with Heder learned American Sign Language before the film's production, told AFP soon after.</p>.<p>The filmmakers hired a team of sign language consultants early on to translate Heder's screenplay into ASL and provide a link between deaf and hearing actors on set.</p>.<p>They together picked gestures from the language's broad lexicon that were appropriate to the specific "accent" of the Massachusetts deaf community, and that would convey intuitive meaning to hearing audiences.</p>.<p>The unprecedented success of <em>CODA </em>in claiming the biggest prize of Hollywood's award season is a huge boon to big-spending Apple, which came late to the streaming wars and is running to catch up with the likes of Netflix and Disney+.</p>.<p>Industry analysts say the film's family themes and traditional underdog-overcoming-adversity storyline made it the movie equivalent of a slam dunk.</p>.<p>While $25 million is a lot for an indie film, that gamble has proven to be a sound one, delivering priceless value for Apple as it seeks to establish a reputation in Tinseltown and grow its subscriber numbers.</p>
<p><em>CODA </em>a feel-good indie drama about a deaf family defying the odds, pulled off a stunning upset to scoop the top prize at the Oscars Sunday, becoming the first-ever streaming film to win best picture.</p>.<p>Taking its title from the acronym for child of deaf adult,<em> CODA</em> follows high school teen Ruby as she juggles her musical ambitions with her family's dependence on her to communicate with the hearing world.</p>.<p>The film bested tough competition to secure Apple the much-coveted gong, pipping streaming rivals including Netflix as well as Hollywood's traditional studios, and delivering a landmark win for disability representation on the silver screen.</p>.<p>"Thank you to the academy for letting our <em>CODA </em>make history tonight," said producer Philippe Rousselet.</p>.<p><em>CODA </em>was released by Apple TV+ after a bidding war at last year's Sundance independent film festival, where it fetched a record $25 million.</p>.<p>The film by director Sian Heder (<em>Orange is the New Black)</em>, which industry insiders suggest had a budget of just $10 million, shuns big names and expensive locations to concentrate on its crowd-pleasing story of high schooler Ruby Rossi.</p>.<p>Ruby, played by breakout young actress Emilia Jones, has to navigate the usual teenage trials of meeting a boy and falling in love, but with the added challenge of being the only hearing member of her deaf family.</p>.<p>She provides the much-needed link to the hearing world for her family's struggling fishing business in a small seaside town near Boston, but desperately wants to follow her own dreams and go off to college to sing.</p>.<p>Based on the French film "The Belier Family," which controversially used hearing actors to portray deaf characters, <em>CODA </em>opts for authenticity instead, with past Oscar winner Marlee Matlin ("Children of a Lesser God") a familiar face as Ruby's slightly eccentric, but vulnerable, mother.</p>.<p>Ruby's father, played with comic aplomb by Troy Kotsur (himself a winner for best supporting actor), and brother -- a powerful turn from Daniel Durant ("Switched at Birth") -- round out the unconventional foursome, whose on-screen chemistry is evident.</p>.<p><em>CODA </em>beat out rivals in the best picture category including the bookies' favorite <em>The Power of the Dog</em> by Jane Campion, acclaimed family memoir <em>Belfast </em>from Kenneth Branagh, and Steven Spielberg's remake musical "West Side Story."</p>.<p>Other films in the category were Leonardo DiCaprio's <em>Don't Look Up</em>, sci-fi blockbuster <em>Dune</em>, tennis biopic <em>King Richard</em>, Japanese road movie <em>Drive My Car</em>, Los Angeles love letter "Licorice Pizza" and mid-20th century carnival noir "Nightmare Alley."</p>.<p>Heder also won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.</p>.<p>The film's dark horse status was cemented last month when it scooped the prestigious Screen Actors Guild prize for the best performance by a cast -- SAG's equivalent of the Academy's best picture Oscar.</p>.<p>"We're such a tight cast, so it was a lovely prize to win," Jones, who along with Heder learned American Sign Language before the film's production, told AFP soon after.</p>.<p>The filmmakers hired a team of sign language consultants early on to translate Heder's screenplay into ASL and provide a link between deaf and hearing actors on set.</p>.<p>They together picked gestures from the language's broad lexicon that were appropriate to the specific "accent" of the Massachusetts deaf community, and that would convey intuitive meaning to hearing audiences.</p>.<p>The unprecedented success of <em>CODA </em>in claiming the biggest prize of Hollywood's award season is a huge boon to big-spending Apple, which came late to the streaming wars and is running to catch up with the likes of Netflix and Disney+.</p>.<p>Industry analysts say the film's family themes and traditional underdog-overcoming-adversity storyline made it the movie equivalent of a slam dunk.</p>.<p>While $25 million is a lot for an indie film, that gamble has proven to be a sound one, delivering priceless value for Apple as it seeks to establish a reputation in Tinseltown and grow its subscriber numbers.</p>