Indian feature “Angh,” the feature directorial debut of Theja Rio, has taken the top prize in the Toronto Film Festival‘s Platform section, an award that comes with automatic entry into the Oscars’ international feature film race for 2027. India’s official submission to the category is “Gondhal,” which won Santosh Davakhar best director at the International Film Festival of India, Goa. The story of “Angh” takes place in Nagaland during the 1960s, centering on an elderly Konyak chief and his son, two of the last holdouts in their village clinging to their ancestral beliefs as the world around them shifts irrevocably.
The cast draws largely from indigenous Naga communities, joined by BAFTA winner Douglas Henshall. Reviewing the film for Variety, Siddhant Adlakha wrote: “With disarming simplicity, ‘Angh’ challenges closely held notions of default filmic perspectives, offering a whole new world for us to consider through its soulful ruminations, while forcing us to reflect on the cost of our own unassuming norms. It is, in effect, a lament for things which have been lost, a quiet memorial that beats with righteous fury over how easily we let entire ways of life simply slip away – or rather, how we allow them to be snatched in the guise of progress.”Nancy Nisa Beso and Rio produced “Angh.” Jungle Book Studio represents the film for international and local distribution, having picked up global sales rights before the movie’s Toronto premiere.
At the heart of the film is the relationship between a father and son, but it is also about letting go, our relationship with home and the transient nature of life.” Beso called her work with Rio one of the longest and most meaningful collaborations of her career, saying they had carried “Angh” for years, from a short film through to the feature, on the belief that the story had to be told on their own terms. The film is also produced through Undercover Squirrel, a story-driven media company working across film, documentaries, digital media and commercials.
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