Boong's win at BAFTA makes history as Director Devi is awarded by Paddington: 'We pray for peace to return in Manipur'

Dubai: In a night filled with upsets with Marty Supreme taking home all losses despite 11 nominations and surprises with I Swear actor Robert Aramayo winning Best Actor at the 2026 BAFTA Film Awards, one of the most moving moments came when Lakshmipriya Devi accepted the award for Best Children's and Family Film for her debut feature Boong.

Standing on stage at London's Royal Festival Hall, she used the global platform not to celebrate her achievement, but to pray for peace in her troubled homeland of Manipur.

Boong, a Manipuri-language coming-of-age film, beat international heavyweights including Zootopia 2, Lilo & Stitch and the French sci-fi film Arco to claim the award. It is the first Indian film ever to win a BAFTA in this category, marking a genuinely historic moment for Indian cinema and particularly for films from the country's often overlooked northeastern region.

Accepting the award from Paddington Bear, which is about as charming a BAFTA moment as you can get, Devi described her film as being "rooted in a place that's very troubled, very much ignored and very under-represented in India: my homeland, Manipur."

"The walk up till here felt like the last few steps to reach the summit of a mountain we never knew we were climbing in the first place," Devi said, her voice steady but clearly emotional. "I just want to use this opportunity to say that we pray for peace to return in Manipur."

She continued: "We pray that all the internally displaced children, including the child actors in the film, regain their joy, their innocence, and their dreams once again. We pray that no conflict is ever formidable enough to destroy the one superpower that all of us have as human beings, that is forgiveness."

Devi was speaking about the ongoing crisis in her home state, where ethnic violence has left more than 260 people dead and tens of thousands displaced since the summer of 2023.

At its heart, Boong follows a mischievous young boy named Brojendro Boong Singh, played by 12-year-old Gugun Kipgen, who lives with his mother in Manipur's capital city, Imphal. His father left home to run a furniture shop in Moreh, a border town near Myanmar, and has stopped contacting the family.

Refusing to believe rumours of his father's death, Boong decides to bring him home as a gift for his mother. With the help of his best friend Raju, he embarks on a journey in search of answers.

Devi told the Indian Express in 2024 that she wanted her film to begin like a grandmother's story: "Once upon a time, there was a boy named Boong."

While the film unfolds through a child's eyes, it also touches upon weighty issues including long-standing ethnic tensions, migration, political suspicion and the militarisation of the state, which shares a border with Myanmar.

The casting itself carries symbolic weight: Gugun Kipgen, who plays Boong, is from the Kuki-Zo community and portrays a Meitei character in the film. His best friend Raju is from the Marwari community, often perceived as mainlanders or outsiders in the northeast.

A review in The Hollywood Reporter India noted that Boong "trusts its personal story to convey the history of a place without exoticising it," adding that it "forces us to remember that Boong and his fellow characters are humans before they're Manipuri, Hindu, invisibilised or Indian."

Backstage after her win, Devi spoke about how the film was inspired by the folk tales of her grandmother. "I come from a very troubled state in India. Those folk tales always cushioned me. There would be gunshots in the distance but I felt safe with her. I wanted 'Boong' to be an urban version of her folk tales with the same kind of warmth that made you feel safe. It's also a closure for myself from those memories of having grown up in a place like that."

Boong was produced by Excel Entertainment, an established Mumbai production company co-founded by Bollywood actor Farhan Akhtar and producer Ritesh Sidhwani.

Speaking to Deadline after the win, Akhtar said he had known Devi for close to 20 years and that backing a film set in a region of India "where there are very few films that we get to watch just felt right."

That support gave Boong the platform it needed to travel the international festival circuit. The film premiered in the Discovery section of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and was later screened at the Warsaw International Film Festival, the International Film Festival of India, the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.

Congratulatory messages poured in after the win. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it "a moment of immense joy, especially for Manipur" and said the film highlighted "the immense creative talent in our nation."

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote on X that the film "has created history" and that its cast and crew "have made the whole nation proud."

Manipur's new Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh, who took oath earlier this month, called the win a moment of pride for the state and the country.

The official account of the government of Manipur wrote: "Rooted in the soil of Manipur, Boong is more than a film. It is a tribute to a homeland that remains resilient despite hardship. In Devi's powerful words, she prayed for peace to return to Manipur and for internally displaced children, including the young actors of the film, to regain their joy, innocence and dreams. Her message was clear and moving: no conflict should ever overpower humanity's greatest strength, forgiveness."

Areeba Hashmi is a trainee at Gulf News.