Filmmaker Manisha Halai from Kathan, Wakro in Lohit District, Arunachal Pradesh, has won international acclaim for her debut documentary “Orange Beetle: Mother & I”. The film received both the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) Award and the Audience Award at the Docs By The Sea Storytelling Lab and Pitching Forum in Bali, Indonesia, selected from 292 entries.

Presented in the Kaman Mishmi language, the documentary tells an intimate story about her mother. The project was developed under the mentorship of Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh and incubated at the Himalayan Story Lab.

Manisha, a Training Assistant with Green Hub in Tezpur, Assam, travelled abroad for the first time to showcase her work, becoming the first Green Hub fellow to pitch on an international platform. She credits her passion for storytelling to early exposure in libraries at Wakro and Tezu and her education at KGBV Wakro.

Apart from filmmaking, she actively engages in community work, serving as president of the Forum of Library Activists and a senior volunteer with the Lohit Youth Library Network.