We should all come together and make Indian cinema proud: Rohit Shetty

I think its high time we all come together and make Indian cinema proud, Shetty told reporters here at the launch of the Indian National Cine Academy INCA.Envisioned as a long-term institution for Indian cinema, INCA, founded by Vishnu Vardhan Induri, seeks to foster collaboration, knowledge-sharing, transparency, and credible recognition across languages, regions, and crafts.

Filmmaker Rohit Shetty says he does not like terms like Bollywood, Kollywood and Tollywood as he believes Indian cinema is one and filmmakers from different languages should work towards making it better. ''It should be one nation, one celebration and one cinema that is Indian cinema. I think it's high time that we all come together again. Bollywood, Tollywood, earlier it was said as a joke. It's not something to be proud of, being called Bollywood. ''We are Hindi cinema, Indian cinema, Telugu cinema. I think it's high time we all come together and make Indian cinema proud," Shetty told reporters here at the launch of the Indian National Cine Academy (INCA).

Envisioned as a long-term institution for Indian cinema, INCA, founded by Vishnu Vardhan Induri, seeks to foster collaboration, knowledge-sharing, transparency, and credible recognition across languages, regions, and crafts. Induri made the announcement on Wednesday at an event here. INCA aims to bring together all Indian film industries on a single, unified platform. The 51-year-old filmmaker, known for films such as "Golmaal" franchise, "Singham" franchise and "Chennai Express", said the remake culture among the Hindi and south cinema has been there since the 1950s. "Since the inception of cinema, the film production houses of the south, their directors have been making films here (in Hindi) and the films from here have been remade there as well... L V Prasad sir is such a huge director, he made so many films here (in Hindi). In the 70s, Amit ji's films were remade in the south. Till today, they remake '3 Idiots', 'Kahani', 'Queen'," he said.

''I think we should all celebrate cinema now. The world is shrinking due to social media. Everyone knows each other. Every state child knows the actors are from which (film) industry," he added.

The Producers Guild of India came on board as the Chief Patron of the initiative. Induri announced the first edition of the INCA Awards to be held on March 9 in Mumbai. The unified awards aim to recognize and honour talent across industries. The event was attended by Shetty, Aanand L. Rai, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Ahan Shetty, Manoj Tiwari, Hans Raj Hans, Vipul Shah, Khushbu Sundar, Anand Gandhi, Srikant Mohta, Lakshmi Manchu, Shibasish Sarkar, Subodh Bhave and others.

Actor-politician Khusbhu Sundar backed Shetty, saying she also does not like terms like Bollywood and Kollywood.

"We belong to Indian cinema and not divided by any region or barriers of the language because I'm sure all of us in this auditorium believe today that art is fluid. It cannot be captured or it cannot be bracketed into one area. So, let's all flow together and make this bigger," she said.

''I have been advocating for a very long time that we should do away with terms of endearment like Kollywood, Bollywood and Tollywood.'' Known for films such as "Chinna Thambi", "Periyar", Irattai Roja" and "Simmarasi", Khushbu said INCA awards will define credibility.

"I can vouch for Vishnu and his team that INCA is going to be about credibility. It's not about who's going to come and perform. So, they will be awarded. We promise that we are going to make sure that it's about credibility. And the rightly deserving people take the awards back home," she said.

Actor-politician Manoj Tiwari, who was representing Bhojpuri cinema at the INCA, said the Bhojpuri cinema is yet to get its due.

''Its' best time is yet to come and maybe that time will come after this (INCA)," he said.

INCA 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.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)