“I am ready to be a difficult person, as long as I get to be who I am,” says filmmaker Tribeny Rai whose internationally acclaimed debut feature film Shape of Momo echoes similar sentiments. Coming from Sikkim, a region we consider far less patriarchal than North India, she insists that misogyny is ingrained in our social fabric, only the degree varies. Response to her much acclaimed film, which has won many international awards, including Taipei Film Commission Award and the Songwon Vision Award at Busan Film Festival, has been overwhelming, proving regional is universal and how a deeply personal story resonates with audiences. She reasons, “When you tell a story with honesty people automatically connect.”Compared to mainland India, North-East is certainly progressive. So, what was the trigger — an image or a memory? She smiles, “My whole life. When you come from a family of four daughters, are treated as second class citizens with people telling you how your parents really needed a son and you try to be a son your parents never had, everything flows organically.”Interestingly, she began the film hoping to find an answer to the question plaguing her. But after making the film, she has more questions. To the query if women makers can balance the world better for women, she observes, “Women alone can’t empower women. You need empathetic men like my producer and cowriter Kislay. Still, it’s a great time for women to be telling their stories.”If lack of North East’s representation in mainstream cinema perturbed her, so did the realisation as to how North-Easterners are made to play simpletons, exotic creatures or shamans, basically second fiddle even when films are about them. But for this anomaly she quips, “You can’t blame your neighbours for not telling your story. We need to be heroes in our own stories.”With host of films from North East, including Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong and Rima Das’ Village Rockstars 2, breaking out in  the international scene, she reminds us how filmmakers like renowned Assamese director Jahnu Barua have been making films for the longest time. But currently, they are creating a buzz with greater consistency and frequency. In future, she would like to focus on her region, and continue to champion women who need not always be righteous, can be flawed too, for she quips, “That’s what human beings are.” Indeed, there is a price to be paid for being non-conformist, but as she puts it, “The freedom it grants you is incomparable.”As a song in her film goes, ‘If you are a flower you see the world as a flower and if you are a thorn you see the world as a thorn,’ what does she think women are? She deems, “Women can be whoever they want to be.” So, to all those women out there, including her friend Payal Kapadia, also executive producer of her film along with Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, she gives a big shout out. She shares, “Shape of Momo is not my journey alone but of hundreds of brave ones who have the gumption to be difficult, different, complex and dare to not fit in,”By the way unlike Bishnu of Shape of Momo, Tribeny can make perfect momos and a near perfect film too.