BAFTA 2026 Nominations: Manipuri film ‘Boong’ has found itself amid the echoes of the 98th British Academy Film Awards nominees. Made by Lakshmipriya Devi, this art film has run its course through festival screenings and jury rooms, and has taken North East India to a global stage. Devi’s debut film, Boong, has been nominated for the Best Children’s and Family Film at the 2026 BAFTA Awards.
Written and directed by her, it is not just a rarity, but a breakaway moment for Manipuri art from the local reportage. Boong, a fictional film, is centred around pain that has transcended geographical borders. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter India, Devi shared her journey of taking her film global and why she chose a child’s perspective to do it.
As she hopes to open doors with this nomination, not just for herself, but for other regional films, she remarked, “If we can watch Korean films with subtitles and celebrate them, why not our own regional cinema? I hope this nomination becomes a small hole, and then a window.”
‘Everything with Boong was a shot in the dark’
As the media carries a very specific narrative of Manipur as an Indian state, detaching the film from that image globally was especially challenging. However, Boong’s maker shared, “Everything with Boong has been a shot in the dark—zero expectations. So if something comes out of it, it’s like a bonus.” Set in an ‘alien place,’ she recalled that the submission to the BAFTAs was itself a shot in the dark.
Not a cry for help, but a cheer for attention, this nomination comes at a crucial time in Indian filmmaking. Calling platforms like the BAFTAs ‘gateways’, creative expression in an independent film like ‘Boong’ gets global recognition through such awards. “People don’t even give stories from the Northeast a chance to be made or shown in mainstream spaces like cinema theatres. So yes, even that small attention helps,” she told THR India.
Backed by Bollywood actor-director Farhan Akhtar, Boong follows a young boy who is on a mission to bring back his absent father as a surprise gift for his mother. Referring to the child protagonist, Devi shared how she intends the film to be for everyone, and not just children. She pointed out that there was a lack of such children’s films, though, in India.
Growing up in Manipur, she had a rather political childhood. And drawing inspiration from that, she chose to depict the happy times. “It was always about finding closure for me. It was extremely personal. I wrote this film to find closure for myself,” she shared.
‘It’s not a melodrama’
There are times when artists cannot separate themselves from the art and project their experience as a memoir for their viewers, diluting the essence of the film. To keep the innocence of the film intact, Devi stopped taking herself ‘too seriously’ and remembered ‘how it felt to be a kid’ – from flying kites to running around.
In the end, she hoped that this BAFTA 2026 nomination would serve as a gateway to Indian regional cinema. She quipped at the popular K-pop culture and K-dramas that have found a dominant footing in India in a ‘if-they-can-why-not-us’ way.