“Angh,” Theja Rio’s debut feature from Nagaland, won the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, an award that places it directly in the 2027 Oscars race for international feature film.
This is the first year the prize carries that Oscar-qualifying status, and winners no longer need a submission from their home country. A five-member jury led by Argentine director Pablo Trapero picked the film from 12 titles in the section. Amma Asante, Sylvia Chang, Luc Déry and Albert Lee sat on the panel. “Angh” was the only Indian film selected.
India’s official submission is “Gondhal,” whose director, Santosh Davakhar, won the best director prize at the International Film Festival of India in Goa. The Toronto win means Rio’s film does not depend on that selection.
“Angh” premiered in Toronto on Sept. 15. Adam Pietkiewicz shot it on 16mm. It unfolds in 1960s Nagaland and follows a Konyak chief and his son as an American missionary’s arrival threatens their culture. Most of the cast comes from indigenous Naga communities, joined by BAFTA winner Douglas Henshall.
Rio said the team made the film “with a lot of love” for his homeland, his people and their culture. He acknowledged that recognition of this scale is rare for a first feature. Producer Nancy Nisa Beso, who shares the credit with Rio, called their partnership one of the longest and most meaningful of her career. The two carried the project for years, starting from an earlier short film.
Variety critic Siddhant Adlakha described the film as a lament and a quiet memorial to ways of life that disappear under the banner of progress. He wrote that it challenges the default perspectives audiences bring to cinema.
Jungle Book Studio holds global sales rights, which it acquired before the Toronto premiere, and represents the film for international and local distribution.
