UKHRUL: Naga filmmaker Theja Rio has won the Platform Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for his debut feature Angh, earning the film a direct spot in the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, scheduled to take place on March 14, 2027, in Los Angeles, California.
In his winning speech, Rio described TIFF’s recognition of a film from an indigenous region and spoken in a tribal language as “truly special.” He dedicated the award to people back home in the Northeast saying, “I come from a small town in the Northeast of India where dreams do not often come true for my people. So if I may, I would like to dedicate this award to everyone back home. This is just the beginning.”
Angh was the only Indian film to have its world premiere in TIFF’s Platform section this year, a competitive programme dedicated to distinctive, director-driven cinema.The development comes just a week after Santosh Davakhar’s Gondhal was selected as India’s official entry for the same category in which Angh is now set to compete.
Through changes made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in May this year, films that win a top jury prize at major international film festivals, including Berlin, Busan, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and Venice, can qualify for consideration in the Best International Feature Film category.
Speaking to the Canadian Press after the win, Rio said bringing the film to TIFF itself had been an achievement, with the award making the moment even more significant.
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“Just getting our film to come here has been an incredible achievement but then to have a spotlight shine on it with an award is the stuff of dreams. I cannot say I never thought about this but first and foremost I wanted to make a film about where I come from, I wanted to tell a story, I wanted to have our voices heard and that remained my number one priority,” he was quoted as saying.
He added, “But to be here at TIFF and to win an award with this is just a dream come true. It just keeps getting more surreal and I hope it is a dream I do not wake up from. Long way to go as my producers here would say, it is another battle to get nominated. But very happy, very grateful and very proud of the film we have all been able to make.”
Speaking in an interview with TIFF about the process of casting non-actors, Rio said the lack of a professional film industry in the region meant the team had to look beyond conventional casting.
“We come from a region where the film industry is almost non-existent, so that meant we don’t have a lot of professional actors where we come from. We had to go to the villages and street cast,” he said.
The team would typically find three or four people in each village who had never stepped onto a film set before and had little idea of what they were getting into.
For Rio, however, that became an important part of the process. He said non-actors often already embody aspects of the characters they are cast to play through their cultural background and personality, allowing a “three dimensional character” to walk onto the set.
“They come in with their glass empty,” Rio said.
Set in Nagaland in the 1960s, Angh follows Angbha (Anghlong Konyak), the last surviving chief of a deserted village, where he remains with his ailing wife and non-speaking young son. Angbha had banished the villagers after they converted to Christianity.
He is later confronted by an American missionary, played by Douglas Henshall, who expresses his desire to give “the truth”, while Angbha responds by shouting, “Do not speak to me like an animal”. The exchange reflects the tensions between the two sides as they confront questions of faith, identity and cultural change.
Shot on 16mm film, Angh presents the history of conversion through an archival visual language, avoiding sentimentality and instead observing how the process operates.
The film has also received a warm response from audiences in Toronto, according to Rio, who told the Canadian Press that despite being “oceans apart”, there was a resonance between the cultures. He also pointed to TIFF’s history of championing filmmakers as one of the reasons the team wanted to bring the film to the festival.
The High Commission of Canada also took to X to acknowledge the film’s presence at TIFF.
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“The film’s presence at TIFF celebrates India’s diverse cinematic landscape and storytelling traditions, bringing them to audiences worldwide, while shining a spotlight on the creative talent of Northeast India,” it said.
Congratulating the filmmaker and his team on X, Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio took to a post, “Congratulations to Director and the team of ‘ANGH’ on winning the prestigious Platform Prize at TIFF. This historic win marks a proud moment for Nagaland and India, and carries a Naga debut onto the Oscar journey.”
“It is also a proud moment for our region and its storytellers on the global stage as ‘ANGH’ brings Naga cinema and its talent into the spotlight. My best wishes to the entire team for their journey ahead,” he said.
