But Angh didn’t let a snub keep it silent. Three days after the Film Federation of India announced Marathi hit Gondhal as the country’s Oscar submission, the Naga‑based feature struts onto the international stage by bagging the Platform Prize at TIFF 2026. The win unlocks a new path to the Academy Awards under the Academy’s revamped rules, meaning the film can now compete in the International Feature Film category without having to go through the national selection labyrinth.
The jury that passed on Angh was a tight 14‑member panel, and the film scored 11 votes before being edged out. Jury head Vivek Vaswani told NDTV that the decision hinged on a release‑deadline worry: if the film missed its September 30 cut‑off, India could be left with a blank slate. He pointed out that the concern was not about incomplete paperwork but about the risk of a technical hiccup delaying the release.
The makers, however, were quick to slam the logic. Producer Nancy Nisa Beso said the team had already filed all required documents and had secured a release window before the FFI announcement. "We were in the hospital of paperwork at 3 a.m. that day, not a missing file," she told NDTV, adding that the film had a confirmed cinema slot and a distribution plan in place. Director Theja Rio echoed the frustration, questioning why a hypothetical release problem should trump merit when the film was already slated for a pre‑September 30 debut.
Now that Angh is set to hit theatres before the cut‑off, its TIFF win guarantees Oscar eligibility, giving it a second shot at the Academy Awards. While Gondhal remains India’s official entry, the two films will now vie for a place in the International Feature Film race on entirely different tracks. For cinephiles, it’s a reminder that the road to Hollywood can twist in unexpected ways, and that a late‑day win at a festival can rewrite a film’s destiny.