From Nagaland to a path to the Oscars: Indian film brings a rarely seen world to global cinema

There is something pleasingly improbable about Angh.The film comes from Nagaland, a mountainous state of fewer than two million people on India's northeastern frontier, and is in Konyak, a tribal language unfamiliar to most Indians, never mind audiences abroad. It was director Theja Rio's first feature and most of its cast faced a camera for the first time.And yet, at the Toronto International Film Festival this month, this quiet film won the Platform Prize, a major juried award.The award is intended to recognise films with a particularly distinctive directorial voice. The jury praised Rio's "refreshing perspective" and the film's portrait of a world rarely encountered on the international screen.The win also gives Angh an unusual route towards the 2027 Academy Awards. Under new rules, winners of designated prizes at six international festivals can qualify for consideration in the International Feature Film category without relying solely on their country's official submission.This does not make Angh an Oscar nominee. But it does place a Konyak-language film from one of India's smallest states inside a global conversation from which such stories have been almost entirely absent.Rio...