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Indian National Cine Academy (INCA) has been announced as a pan-India institution for Indian Cinema, a monumental vision to unite India’s cinematic powerhouses, aimed at bringing together all the twelve Indian film industries on a single, unified platform.
Promising full credibility and zero dependence on star-spectacle (as in performances) or ad revenues, the Indian National Cine Academy also announced the first edition of the INCA Awards at a media meet at the J.W. Marriott on January 7. The awards function will be shown digitally for the same reason—credibility sans business interests.
Among the promised guests, actor Ahan Shetty, actor-filmmaker Subodh Bhave from the world of Marathi entertainment and Gujarati-Hindi filmmaker Vipul Shah were absent.
Visionary founder and filmmaker Vishnu Vardhan Induri, Shibashish Sarkar, Rohit Shetty, Manoj Tiwari, Khushboo Sunder, Dil Raju, Lakshmi Manchu, Ankur Garg, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Navraj Hans (who insisted on speaking to the audience in Punjabi for unknown reasons when he could speak in Hindi and English!) and Aanand L. Rai were present.
The event is said to be held on March 9 and will follow the Oscar pattern of members of the industry, including the Film Producers’ Guild (as the Chief Patron of the initiative) as voters.
Envisioned as a long-term institution for Indian cinema, INCA seeks to foster collaboration, knowledge-sharing, transparency, and credible recognition across languages, regions, and crafts.
Vardhan Induri, founder of INCA, said, “INCA is being built with intent, integrity, and purpose. Our goal is to create a permanent national institution that enables collaboration across industries, celebrates excellence fairly, and builds a universal talent database for Indian cinema.”
Commenting on the association, President, Producers’ Guild of India, Sarkar, said, “INCA represents an important step towards institutionalizing collaboration, credibility, and transparent processes in building a unified awards platform that celebrates all Indian languages equally and credibly. The Guild is pleased to support this initiative as Chief Patron.”
INCA goes beyond being an awards platform and is structured as a national ecosystem for Indian cinema, comprising an annual Cinema Conclave, a transparent and process-driven awards framework, and the creation of a universal database of actors, technicians, and creative professionals across twelve Indian film industries. This database aims to enable cross-industry and cross-regional collaboration, strengthening the Indian film ecosystem.
Chatterjee stated that this move would give exposure to industries about technicians, writers and other talents from across the country.
Sunder, who began in Hindi films and later made a big splash down South, said, “It’s time we said we belong to Indian cinema. Art is fluid and cannot be captured or bracketed into one area, so let’s all flow together and make it bigger.”
She added a request to Vishnu Vardhan when she complimented the A-V (a mix of films across all languages) shown but stated that more than the stars, the directors, who are the real heroes, and their pictures could have been highlighted. “Cinema is not about actors only,” she emphasized.
Tiwari stated that he had starred in a 2004 film made on a budget of Rs. 3 million that had made Rs. 5.4 billion at the box-office. “But no one connected with that blockbuster—director, writer or anyone else—got any award! There is a long line drawn to part industries into compartments. We are a 34-crore audience that knows about the biggest names in Hindi cinema but not in, say, Telugu or Malayalam cinema. INCA is a great step towards that.”
Shetty quipped, “My films are the type that do not get awards! But I welcome this step towards uniting cinema.”
The general consensus was that patent terminology like Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood and so on must be junked and so also Hindi, Bengali, Marathi or other cinema and that everyone should be known as being a part of “Indian” cinema.
