Cinema from the Northeast has been quietly making waves on the global stage since the 1980s. Yet, its journey, which began in 1935, has often unfolded in the shadows — overlooked, marginalised and debated. With its eight states — Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim — Northeast continues to be one of India’s most stereotyped regions: labelled as a conflict zone, prone to insurgency, it is often viewed as an exotic, monolithic entity.The works of many filmmakers from the region have drawn global attention and been screened at international film festivals. This is not a recent phenomenon; cinema from the Northeast has attracted attention even in the past. For instance, in 1981, Aribam Syam Sharma’s feature film Imagi Ningthem (My Son, My Precious) won Montgolfiere d’Or at the Festival of Three Continents in Nantes. His 1990 film Ishanou (The Chosen One) was screened at the Un Certain Regard section at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. Veteran filmmaker Aribam says, “I did not like it when Ishanou was called a ‘Manipuri or a Northeastern film’ by a journalist from Chennai. They should have known that the film was the only Indian entry at the Cannes Festival in 1991.”