Manipuri Film Boong Wins BAFTA Award, Marking Historic First For Regional Cinema

Sometimes, some of the most unsung movies walk away with enormous recognition and totally unexpected awards. There are some very telling examples: dissident director Jafar Panahi's Iranian work ‘It Was Just An Accident’ won Cannes's highest Palme d'Or and Jim Jarmusch's ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ walked away with Venice's Golden Lion. They were not even in the running for the prizes.

Similarly, and unexpectedly, Lakshmipriya Devi's first feature, Boong, has garnered the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award this year—an incredible honour that a Manipuri film has won for the first time.

A familiar theme, a fresh setting

The movie may not have a very original plotline, for we have often seen children trying to find their parents. In the 2007 film ‘August Rush’, a musically gifted orphan runs away to New York City to find his biological parents. ‘Lion’ examines the plight of a five-year-old Indian boy who finds a foster home in Australia but, a quarter century later, returns home looking for his original family. In ‘Kannathil Muthamittal’, a little girl pesters her adoptive parents to help find her mother, a rebel fighter in Sri Lanka.

In Boong, a naughty schoolboy is bold enough to go looking for his missing father along our country's border with Myanmar. He does not care about the bullets flying all around him. Interestingly, Devi's film coincided with the outbreak of hostilities there—an ethnic conflict reportedly the longest the world has ever seen.

A metaphor for a troubled region

The movie acts as a metaphor for a troubled region, highlighting the abject neglect the place has suffered. We see how deeply under-represented it is, and Boong's travel helps us witness the harsh realities of living in turbulent times. Once Boong learns the truth about his father, he is thrust into a dilemma, which ultimately pushes him towards maturity and adulthood. Devi brings this transformation with depth and feeling. What is more, her approach is refreshingly gentle and focuses on innocence, which becomes an ever-present leitmotif throughout the work.

Devi's creation may revolve around a child, but to term it a children's film would be too simplistic. She reveals through his eyes the prevailing ethno-racial tensions, a separatist movement, the anger against “Indian culture”, the obsession with English-medium education, and the stigma of single parenting. And then there is that streak of rebellion—a must for any change: Boong is expelled from school for reciting Madonna's ‘Like a Virgin’, which he does with disarming innocence. The movie is honest and unpretentious.

Published on: Thursday, February 26, 2026, 10:17 PM IST