Lakshmipriya Devi’s debut directorial, Boong, brought glory to India as it was announced as the Best Children’s & Family Film at the BAFTA 2026. Boong beat international nominees like Arco, Lilo & Stitch, and Zootopia 2 to win the coveted award.
In her acceptance speech, director Lakshmipriya Devi not only prayed for peace to return to the Indian state of Manipur but also expressed hope that children caught at the crossroads of political unrest would regain the joy and innocence of childhood—a situation that metaphorically aligns with the subject of the film.
From a broad perspective, Boong appears to be a delicately simple coming-of-age tale about a young boy seeking to reunite with his father. At its core, however, it is the story of a world where identities are shaped by politics, social status, and fractured narratives of power.
The film creatively embeds the personal within the political, where the child’s gaze creates a contested space of resistance as he ventures out to find his father. This journey can also be interpreted as a search for self-identity, with the film’s social commentary emerging from this very pursuit. The clash of ethnicities, the plurality of gender roles, the struggles of marginalized lives, and systemic neglect are all structured around this quest.
Boong, the titular character played by Gugun Kipgen, lives with his mother, Mandakini (Bala Hijam Ningthoujam), in a small village in Manipur. After enduring the dejection of long abandonment, he, along with his best friend Raju (Angom Sanamatum), embarks alone on a cross-border trip to bring back his father and reunite his family.
They are aided by Boong’s school friend Juliana (Nemetia Ngangbam), who sneaks them into a van carrying her grandfather’s dead body, giving them a free ride to Moreh—a town on the border of Manipur and Myanmar—where Boong’s father supposedly works.
Brojendro, aka Boong, is portrayed as a rebellious child from the beginning. His everyday mischief includes knocking down some of the large metal letters placed above his school gate so that it reads “Homo Boys School,” and later singing Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” as the school prayer. However, his defiance escalates when he sets out to achieve a naïve goal amidst the larger socio-political horrors that exist along the fault lines of the land and its border.
Lakshmipriya Devi constructs the film’s “known world” with palpable innocence before gradually revealing the burden of its “unknown world.” We witness the two children navigating the symbolically rugged terrain of the politically charged Myanmar borderland. The stakes rise, and anxiety for their safety intensifies. A gun-clad army man warns Raju, “You shouldn’t be fooling around in a place like this alone.”
Soon, Boong and his friend cross the threshold, and the terrain presents immediate physical and emotional challenges. As they pedal around with a photograph of Joykumar, Boong’s father, asking about his whereabouts, their own friendship is tested. They quarrel, momentarily losing their shared grace. They also attract the hostility of rival children in Myanmar, who chase them with slingshots and stones.
With his friendship on one side and family ties on the other, Boong approaches the inmost cave of his journey and faces his ultimate ordeal with quiet bravery. He discovers that his father is now married to another woman and is living happily with their young daughter. His grief is palpable, as is his relief. Yet he offers no confrontation; he understands that his mother will need his strength more than the truth. The past matters to him—but not more than the future. This positions Boong’s arc as radically innocent yet emotionally mature.
Mandakini, his mother, has thus far embodied both provider and caregiver in the absence of her husband. From taking Boong to school to teaching him, cooking, and managing the household single-handedly, she never relinquishes her belief that her husband will return.
Occasionally supported by Raju’s father, Sudhir (Vikram Kochhar), she resists emotional dependence and the social and cultural policing of a community that stigmatizes the closeness of a married woman with a man who is not her husband. She even refuses to participate in her husband’s death rituals, rejecting the conflation of absence with death. “Please celebrate your own death ceremony,” she says, reclaiming agency within a post-patriarchal space.
The presence of the merchant family—Sudhir Agarwal and his son Raju Agarwal, Rajasthanis settled in Manipur for generations—signals the broader insider-outsider debate in the region. Despite linguistic and cultural assimilation and economic contribution, they continue to be regarded as outsiders by sections of the native community. When Sudhir attempts to help Mandakini, he is warned to step back, his ethnic origin invoked as justification. Hatred deepens as personal interactions between Mandakini and Sudhir increase.
In another instance, Boong, in a fit of rage after losing his father’s only photograph, calls Raju an outsider. Raju retaliates by calling him “momo.” Though they reconcile, the exchange reveals how racism can be conditioned within environments marked by cultural complexity and territorial anxiety.
The exclusionary politics practiced by adults spill over into childhood. Such dynamics restrict cultural integration, as ethnic prejudice becomes a barrier to cross-cultural solidarity.
At its core, the film interrogates gender and culture beneath its veneer of innocence and playful tonality. Boong questions the politics of ethno-nationalism and cultural othering in Manipur. It exposes moralities that rarely transcend performative boundaries in public life. The secret indulgence in banned Bollywood films by the village head underscores the hypocrisy between ideological posturing and private desire.
The film refrains from portraying Joykumar as either villain or victim. Instead, it sustains ambiguity, allowing his absence to be politicized by those who wield power.
The second half unfolds entirely in Moreh, which functions simultaneously as a symbol of abandonment and possibility. It is the site of disappearance and revelation. When Boong and Raju exhaust their luck and money, they desperately seek help from JJ.
JJ, a flamboyant drag performer in a rundown club in Moreh, foregrounds queer marginality in a region where gender binaries often render such identities invisible. JJ becomes an unexpected ally. Crucially, this intervention occurs when adult authority—parents, teachers, institutions—has failed or withdrawn. In doing so, the film asserts that lives situated at the margins, whether geographical or gendered, can still embody hope. JJ helps when more “respectable” adults do not.
Lakshmipriya Devi’s direction demonstrates a keen grasp of child psychology and narrative intention. While occasional tonal imbalances emerge between feel-good fable and stark realism, they do not undermine the film’s political layering or emotional depth. Perhaps the most potent metaphor is Joykumar’s abandonment of his family—an image that can be read as a nation turning its back on a state.
In contemporary times, Manipur has endured administrative neglect, political violence, and ethnic conflict. Though the film refrains from explicit naming, these tensions persist in its subtext. Cross-border trade, illegal migration, and insurgency also inform the narrative, as Joykumar’s identity remains opaque. Though he owns a furniture shop in Moreh, hints suggest possible links to armed resistance. Boong’s uncertain future mirrors the political precarity of the state and its people.
If so, the political philosophy of Boong is one of beckoning. Its conclusion suggests that truth should not be sought unless one is prepared to confront it. This resonates with Manipur’s ongoing struggle to reckon with its history. Boong communicates through the idioms of childhood, yet it remains a deeply honest film—faithful to the complexities of its homeland.
Boong is produced by Farhan Akhtar, Vikesh Bhutani, Alan McAlex, Ritesh Sidhwani, and Shujaat Saudagar.