A film from Nagaland has entered the Oscar race in an unprecedented manner for India. Angh, the debut film by Naga filmmaker Theja Rio, won the Platform Prize at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival on September 20. The win has given the Konyak-language film international recognition as it becomes eligible for the International Feature Film competition at the 2027 Academy Awards. This feat makes Angh the second film to compete for the Oscar from India, as the Film Federation of India has slated Santosh Davakhar’s Marathi thriller Gondhal as the country’s official entry for the 99th Academy Awards.

Angh has entered the Oscars race through a new pathway created by the Academy. Under the new rules, films winning in “designated competitive awards” from six international festivals can bypass the usual Oscar submission process for the International Feature Film category. The prestigious Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, Toronto and Busan Film Festivals have been named as the festivals for the new policy.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) win also marks history as Angh has become the first Indian film to win the Platform Prize. The jury, which was headed by Argentine filmmaker Pablo Trapero, lauded the film for its “perspective, craftsmanship, and humanity,” adding that it captured the “evaporation of a world.” Apart from the applause, the film also received a CAD 20000 prize.

Set in the early 1960s in a remote village of the Konyak tribe in Nagaland, near the India-Myanmar border, Angh narrates the story of Anghba, an elderly village leader. He stays back with his sickly wife and young son after the village is slowly being emptied. As he copes with the loss of his community, a new American missionary enters the village, bringing along another wave of change. The film explores the themes of language and culture as much as it dwells on personal loss and family.

The film was primarily shot in Konyak, a Naga language. It features indigenous actors from Nagaland and the BAFTA-winning Scottish actor Douglas Henshall. The director has often cited the need to hire locals on the sets, as Nagaland does not have a proper film industry. Angh was initially released as a short film at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2021. It won the Prix du Court Métrage prize there, before Rio decided to expand it into a feature film.

The Academy Award, however, remains a work-in-progress for the film, as Angh has not been nominated for the prestigious award. Neither has Gondhal been nominated for the International Feature Film category. They have only reached the eligibility stage. The final nomination will be out soon. Only the selected films will enter the Oscar race.

For now, Naga cinema’s success is set to be celebrated in bigger ways. A movie shot in the Konyak language, shot in a faraway corner of Nagaland and directed by a rookie filmmaker, has gone from being an indie curiosity to the platform of the Oscars.