Angh, rooted in Nagaland's culture, wins TIFF's People Choice Award, putting it on Oscar path

Anghba, the last surviving chief of a deserted Nagaland village who lives with his ailing wife and son, is a witness to the region’s transformation and must guard his age-old beliefs and customs from what he believes is the incursion of a missionary who threatens his community’s existence.

Angh captures the haunting and intimate story of a father and son, the latter increasingly seduced by the comforts of the mission. Simultaneously, the film observes the process of conversion that reframes the local culture as primitive.

Theja Rio expands on award-winning short film

Made by Naga filmmaker Theja Rio and an adaptation of his own award-winning 2021 short film, the gripping, multilayered feature film, which captures a culture rarely depicted on screen, has taken a big leap: it has been selected for the International Feature Film category for next year’s Oscars after winning the prestigious Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

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“It is a very special moment for me and for everyone associated with the film. I am aware that it is rare for a debut film to receive this kind of recognition, and all I can say is that we made Angh with a lot of love — for the place I come from, for my people and for our culture,” Kohima-born Rio said on Sunday after the announcement.

The film, set in the 1960s, is almost entirely in Konyak.

“To see Angh connect with audiences beyond our own community has been deeply moving. I want to thank the jury for recognising our work and for giving us the opportunity to represent our country and our culture on two of the world’s most prestigious stages — TIFF’s Platform Competition and, soon, the Academy Awards as well,” he added.

While national bodies nominate films for the International Feature Film section, this is the first time that the Academy is automatically accepting competition winners from six global festivals, including TIFF.

In choosing Angh, the Platform jury commended the film for “its refreshing perspective, strength of filmmaking, and deeply resonant portrait of a world.

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Angh is the 31-year-old director’s debut feature — it has been expanded on a theme he earlier explored in a short film of the same name which won a special jury award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2021.

“We have been carrying Angh with us for many years...and through all of it, we held on to the belief that this was a story we had to tell, and that we had to tell it on our own terms,” producer Nancy Nisa Beso said.