Canada’s Studio Film Group (SFG) International will co-produce Abhijeet Singh Parmar’s debut feature Overcoat, which will be made under the recently signed India-Canada co-production treaty.

Indian producers Jogavindra S. Khera and Rishebh Batnagar of Telling Tales Entertainment are also on board the project, based on Russian writer Nicolai Gogol’s short story The Overcoat.

Overcoat is a uniquely satirical genre project exploring the human condition, and Abhijeet has an amazing vision for this adaptation that I think will resonate with genre fans throughout the world,” said SFG International president Nadia Sandhu.

Set in Varanasi in the 1990s, the story follows a solitary office clerk who digs into his savings to buy a new coat. But when it is stolen, the traumatised man dies only to return as a ghost that seeks peace by solving the mystery of his stolen overcoat.

The project was selected for NFDC’s National Script Lab in 2013 and this year’s Co-production Market. It recently received the 2014 Caesar Fellowship from Washington DC South Asian Film Festival.

SFG previously distributed Indian films Ship Of Theseus, Michael and Faith Connections in North America and Qissa in Canada.