Director Lakshmipriya Devi’s BAFTA award-winning Manipuri drama Boong has crossed ₹1 crore at the Indian box office following its re-release on March 6, becoming the first film from Manipur to reach the milestone.
The film was co-produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment along with Chalkboard Entertainment and Suitable Pictures. According to the Press Trust of India, the film crossed the ₹1-crore mark in domestic collections.
The film had earlier won the Best Children’s and Family Film award at the 79th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) ceremony held at the Royal Festival Hall in London on February 22, 2026. At the awards, Boong competed with international films including Arco by Ugo Bienvenu, Lilo & Stitch directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, and Zootropolis 2 by Jared Bush and Byron Howard.
The film was also selected as the Spotlight Film at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in 2025, while Lakshmipriya Devi earlier received the Best Director award at the Bulbul Children’s International Film Festival in Goa.
Boong had its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024 and was later screened at several global and Indian festivals including the Warsaw International Film Festival 2024, MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024, the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2025.
The film marks the first feature-length directorial venture of Lakshmipriya Devi. Earlier, she worked as a first assistant director on Luck by Chance and Talaash, and also served as an assistant director on Rajkumar Hirani’s PK starring Aamir Khan, as well as Mira Nair’s series A Suitable Boy.
Just a week after the film completed shooting in April 2023, ethnic violence broke out in Manipur. The family of a child actor in the film, GunGun, who lived in the Kanan Veng area of Imphal, also came under attack. Director Lakshmipriya Devi and her family rescued them from the attackers and handed them over to the Assam Rifles. They were first taken to Kangpokpi, marking the beginning of displacement for the once well-off family. GunGun’s education was interrupted, though she is now in Delhi appearing for her Class VI annual examinations.
Over nearly three years of unrest in Manipur, children have been among the worst affected. The conflict, marked by the divide between the hills and plains and the ethnic tensions between the Kuki people and Meitei people, has seen homes burnt, lives lost and thousands of families displaced to relief camps.
Against this backdrop, Boong’s BAFTA win has been seen as historic. Beyond the award, the film serves as a social document capturing Manipur as it existed before the conflict and the divisions that followed. The story moves between the Meitei-dominated plains of West Imphal and the Kuki-dominated border town of Moreh near Myanmar.
Today, many neighbourhoods in Moreh are lined with burnt houses, but Boong preserves the image of the once-vibrant town before the destruction.
According to Yumnam Khemchand Singh, the Chief Minister of Manipur, the award has taken Manipuri and regional Indian cinema to a new height on the global stage.
While receiving the award in London, Lakshmipriya Devi appealed for peace to return to Manipur. Instead of celebrating, she dedicated the moment to the state devastated by conflict, noting that several children who acted in the film are themselves displaced.
“I hope joy, innocence and dreams return to their lives,” she said, adding that no conflict can destroy the power of forgiveness.
Set in Khurkhul village in Imphal West and the border town of Moreh, the film tells the story of a young Kuki boy who sets out on a journey to bring his missing father home as a gift for his mother.
At the time of filming, Moreh was still a bustling border trade centre where Meiteis, Kukis, Nagas, Pangals and Tamils lived together peacefully. Members of all these communities participated in the film.
Lakshmipriya Devi said it was both thrilling and heartbreaking that Boong now stands as a record of Manipur’s once-harmonious society at a time when many of those places and relationships have been shattered by conflict.
Chief Minister Khemchand Singh said the achievement has brought global recognition to Manipuri art, culture and storytelling.
