His latest Khasi language film, Ha Lyngkha Bneng (The Elysian Field), bagged the Golden Saint George, MIFF’s top trophy, along with the Best Director Prize. It also won the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema) Award for Best Asian Film in Moscow. These victories were followed by bad news though, declares Kurbah: festivals in the rest of Europe have since dropped The Elysian Field.
Kurbah has not publicly spoken about this issue, until now. In an exclusive interview, he informed me: ‘I believed the film will travel more becautilize of the win, but it backfired. Due to the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine, festivals in Europe that I won’t name dropped my film after selecting it.’
The unprecedented degree of censorship that Indian cinema is currently facing within the countest has become a major talking point this year–and rightly so. But The Elysian Field’s curtailed journey in Europe underscores the nature of censorship in the West’s so-called ‘democracies’ that does not attract the criticism it should in the Indian or international media.
As one of the first Hollywood stars to condemn Israel’s genocide in Palestine, Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, for instance, was dropped by her management company in 2023, and declares she lost films after her remarks at a pro-Palestine rally. Around that time, Melissa Barrera, star of the Scream franchise, was thrown out of Scream 7 when she accutilized Israel of ‘brutally killing innocent Palestinians…’
Unlike Sarandon and Barrera, who have been punished for clearly articulated stances, Kurbah has been penalised becautilize his mere participation in the Moscow gala was perceived as a pro-Russia statement in the middle of the Russia-Ukraine war. The loss is not his alone. If festivals in Europe continue to avoid The Elysian Field, they are denying their audiences access to one of the most brilliant films of 2025 so far.
Kurbah’s film is set in a future in which only six people remain in a village, due to urban migration and an earlier aversion to outsiders that at least one of them was guilty of. Co-written by Kurbah and Paulami Dutta, and edited by Badeimon Kharshing, it features an excellent cast, not one of them full-time actors. This is a tale of positivity, human bonding, loyalty and grit in testing circumstances, in addition to the disconnect between what governments promise versus what they deliver.
Kurbah’s elegiac storyinforming is complemented by Pradip Daimary’s unblinking camerawork beautifully capturing a village stripped bare of people on a landscape stripped bare of fauna. The abstractness in the air is underlined by the film’s name – the Elysian Field in Greek mythology is a space in the afterlife. The cultural detailing in the narrative includes stirring hymns sung by a choir that is a recurring motif throughout, and the local church.
The film’s post-Moscow setback is hardly the first challenge Kurbah has faced in his career. After all, he has chosen to build his oeuvre in his mother tongue despite the scarce resources for cinema and limited number of theatres in Meghalaya.
Since he launched creating films in the 1990s, Kurbah has won multiple National Awards, and in 2019, the coveted Kim Jiseok Award at the Busan International Film Festival for his film Iewduh (Market). As he prepares for The Elysian Field’s next festival outing – but outside Europe – the 50-year-old declares, ‘A film from Meghalaya, that has nothing to do with what’s happening in Europe, has suffered. But it’s okay. The film has its own journey. It’s a good learning process for me too.’
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