Why Boong’s win is a reminder to remember Manipur, its battles, and survival

“...We pray for peace to return to Manipur,” says the filmmaker Lakshmipriya Devi, while accepting the award for ‘Boong’ on February 22, the very same day when Vungzagin Valte, a 63-year-old Manipur MLA from the Kuki-Zomi community, who had never fully recovered from the 2023 mob attack, breathed his last - both showcasing the grim state that the north-eastern state has been in, for at least more than two years now.

Lakshmipriya Devi accepts the #EEBAFTAs Children’s and Family Film award for Boong 💫 🗻 pic.twitter.com/TFBnBmDVSx

— BAFTA (@BAFTA) February 22, 2026

The Manipur-language feature film ‘Boong’, backed by Farhan Akhtar, won in the Best Children and Family Film category at the 2026 British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and marks Devi’s directorial debut with the film, which draws attention to how Manipur has grappled with its own battles, unknown to the rest of India, all while Devi draws attention to the longstanding ethnic conflict in Manipur through her speech.

As per reports, it was only after two weeks that Boong’s filming had concluded when ethnic strife between the Meitei and Kuki communities had broken out in May 2023. Nearly 260 people have died since then, while over 60,000 have been displaced - a conversation which remained absent from the mainstream media and dialogues.

Unknown - both culture and clashes

But it is not only the clash that could never form a mainstream discussion point. Like the rest of north-east India, Manipur’s identity and its culture have been nothing but an unknown fiction to the rest of the country. 

The reasons are varied. Manipur shares its borders with Myanmar, which orients it toward Southeast Asia rather than mainland India. Not only does the state have a history of long-standing insurgency, but it has also had limited tourism and exchange. In recent times, north-eastern states like Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim have remained hotspots for tourists, a privilege Manipur never saw.

Indian mainstream media, which is primarily centred in Delhi and Mumbai, has remained historically distant, while cultural and regional productions from Manipur never received the same amplification as Hindi cinema, Bollywood, Punjabi, or South Indian cinema.

Even Boong, through its story, highlights how Manipur has, for decades, been a state militant group seeking to “preserve” Meitei/Manipuri culture, imposing various cultural restrictions, of which banning Hindi films was a part. The film, where a boy Brojendro sets out on a journey to get his father settled in Moreh town, as a gift to his mother Mandakini, throws references to these cultural bans.

On the other hand, the film highlights the daily life of the state; for e.g. Boong’s mother, Mandakini, who runs a small business in the women’s market in Imphal, popular for being a heritage market only run by women, which is believed to be over 500 years old and still upholding the women traders as the backbone of the ecosystem.

In the cultural front, Meiti, Kuku and Naga communities of the state have formed its landscape with the ancient festival of Meitei community, Lai Haraoba which preserves pre-Hindu indigenous rituals and cosmologies, Pung Cholom, a dance form that merges martial energy and devotional art, and many more to name - all of which highlight how India’s cultural map is wider and richer that its mainstream narratives.

Amidst the ignored unrest, a win, that is hope

In recent times, the mainstream narratives have also failed the state by providing inadequate coverage of one of its deadliest unrests. The movie has kept the history of revolutionary movements and unrest as its backdrop. 

It also gives space to the queer struggles in the socio-political fabric. There have been reports of how the queer individuals who belonged to the conflicting Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities have faced dual-layered pressure, as their identity may not conform to the rigid gendered expectations of either group and the conflict, as per various reports, ripped many queer friendships and relationships. 

The time of the movie’s win has also been crucial, as the recent death of Anjel Chakma, a 24-year-old MBA student from Tripura in Dehradun, has once again widely circulated a conversation of biases and the discrimination that the north-eastern people have to face in other parts of the country.

The celebration for Manipur has come at a juncture when the state is overlooking stability after an end to the president’s rule and the swearing in of Yumnam Khemchand Singh as its Chief Minister, Nemcha Kipgen and Losii Dikho as Deputy Chief Ministers of the state in an equal representation of Mieti, Kuki and Naga communities from the state.

Amidst the restoring hope, the film, which had a theatrical release in India on September 19 last year, has also got back with hope embedded in a win, underscoring the need to remember what the state has not yet forgotten.