Beyond the Northeast label: Why globally acclaimed filmmakers reject regional tags

The films that emerge from India’s far‑flung Northeast have been turning heads at Cannes, Locarno and beyond for more than four decades. Still, many of the storytellers behind those works grow impatient when critics or journalists cling to the word “Northeastern” as a shorthand for everything they see.

It’s a frustration that feels oddly familiar. Take Aribam Syam Sharma, whose 1981 feature Imagi Ningthem (“My Son, My Precious”) lifted the Montgolfière d’Or at the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. A decade later his deeply personal film Ishanou (“The Chosen One”) slipped into Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. The film was the sole Indian entry that year, but a Chennai journalist later wrote about it as “a Manipuri or a Northeastern film”. Sharma recalled shaking his head: “It mattered less that the movie was from Manipur and more that it was being reduced to a geographic tag.”

Jahnu Barua’s story runs along a similar line. The twelve‑time National Award winner sent Halodhia Chorai Baodhan Khai (“The Catastrophe”, 1987) to Locarno, where it scooped the Silver Leopard and a special ecumenical jury mention. While accepting the prize Barua was mistakenly treated as a foreign guest at a five‑star hotel in Udaipur, the staff assuming he didn’t belong. “It was a strange reminder that even success abroad didn’t erase the habit of othering,” he later joked, though the irony was not lost on him.

What fuels the irritation is the way the Northeast is often reduced to a monolith – a conflict‑ridden, exotic periphery of India. The eight states – Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim – each harbor distinct languages, cultures and histories. Yet headlines still bundle them under a single “Northeast” banner, and film festivals frequently list entries as “Northeastern cinema”.

For the directors, the label feels like an invisible fence. It can attract curiosity, but it also boxes their stories into a narrow box of “regional authenticity”. When a film about a farmer’s struggle in Assam wins a prize, the narrative often shifts from “a universal story of exploitation” to “a glimpse into a remote corner of India”. The nuance is lost, and the filmmakers fear their work will be forever filtered through an exoticising lens.

Newer voices are echoing the same sentiment. Filmmaker Rima Das, whose debut Village Rockstars (2017) won a Special Jury Award at Sundance, has spoken about being asked repeatedly whether her film is “a Khasi story” or “a Northeastern one”. While she appreciates the regional pride, she insists the film’s emotional core is human, not regional.

The pushback is not about denying geography. Rather, it’s a plea for the art to be judged on its own terms – narrative craft, visual poise, emotional resonance – without the baggage of a regional tag. As Barua put it in a recent interview, “When you say ‘Northeastern film’, you’re already deciding how the audience will see it. I want the audience to see the story first, the people next, and only then the place.”

This stance has begun to shift how festivals present Indian cinema. At the 2024 Busan International Film Festival, the programming team listed titles by director name rather than by state, a small but noticeable change. Similarly, streaming platforms are moving away from “Northeast collection” playlists, opting for genre‑based groupings that let the work stand alongside global peers.

Still, the journey is far from over. The region’s filmmakers continue to grapple with limited distribution, budget constraints, and the lingering stereotype of the “conflict zone”. Yet every award, every screen, and every conversation that moves beyond the label reinforces a simple truth: great storytelling knows no borders.

In the end, whether a film is shot in the misty hills of Meghalaya or the tea gardens of Assam, the creators hope the world will ask, “What does this film say?” rather than “Where does it come from?”. And as long as they keep winning on the global stage, that question will increasingly be the one that matters.