Independent
Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC) presents the much awaited Fusion 2014
MUMBAI: The Indian Merchants’ Chamber is organizing its 3rd edition of ‘IMC FUSION,’ the Conference on Entertainment, Media & Sports on Saturday, February 15, 2014 at Grand Hyatt in Santa Cruz, Mumbai.
The IMC FUSION Conference represents convergence of today’s three most dynamic sectors – Entertainment, Media & Sports. This year, the conference is being organized under the auspices of IMC’s Entertainment Committee chaired by Mr. Manmohan Shetty. Renowned Bollywood film, mainstream television and theatre star Kabir Bedi will be the Host of FUSION 2014.
The third edition of IMC FUSION will feature renowned personalities as speakers from the three sectors deliberating on a wide array of topics covering current issues and trends, emerging technologies and new-age engagement with the consumer, content and creation, talent and involvement, influence of social media and App. world, technical aspects of Indian cinema, and other contemporary developments in ever evolving and dynamic sectors of Sports, Media and Entertainment.
Dr. J. Murali Manohar, Saundarya Rajnikant, Subhash Ghai, Rakesh Roshan, Shekhar Kapoor, Pritish Nandy, Arnab Goswami, N. P. Singh, Annurag Batra, Komal Nahta, Suchitra Iyer, Kirthiga Reddy, Rajan Anandan, Agnello Dias, Steve Waugh, Surya Mantha, Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal, Dr. Prannoy Roy, among others will likely form panels of speakers during the day-long Conference.
The daylong conference will also feature Awards for Excellence in Entertainment, Media & Sports.
The Conference will host delegates from the entertainment, Media and sports fraternity as well as young professionals and students of mass communication, journalism, film institutions and management schools. FUSION 2014 will provide a unique opportunity to the delegates to network with industry peers and share their thoughts and ideas with some of the top thought leaders of the industry.
Commenting on FUSION 2014, IMC President Mr. Shailesh Vaidya said, “With the exponential growth in the content industry across multiple platforms and with the dynamic trends governing its momentum, FUSION 2014 will contribute the best insights under one roof. With this conference IMC, being one of the leading industry bodies, will offer a unique platform for the industry to ponder over the course that it would take in the future and gear up for the challenges ahead. The conference proceedings as well as the Awards for Excellence will offer something for everyone connected with the entertainment, media & sports industry.”
Mr. Manmohan Shetty, Chairman – IMC Entertainment Committee said, “This year IMC FUSION will focus on all aspects in the fastest growing sectors – entertainment, media and sports. IMC FUSION Excellence Awards in the evening following the conference will be a star-studded event honoring winners chosen by an eminent panel of judges.”
Veterans from the Sports, Media and Entertainment fraternity- Mr. Mir Ranjan Negi, Former India Hockey Player & National Coach, Mr. Sanjoy Chakrabarty, Managing Partner Zenith Optimedia, Ms. Bharathi Pradhan, Editor, The Film Street Journal are the Co-Chairperson’s of the Committee.
Indian Merchants’ Chamber, as the pioneering trade body of the country since 1907, has been actively involved in promotion of the business interests of its various constituents. In this process, our endeavour has been to reach out to different industry groups, understand their views and perspectives and present them to the policy makers and other decision makers to facilitate growth of that sector, in particular, and industry in general.
Key issues identified during the FUSION 2014 Conference together with suggestions and outcomes from different sessions will be collated for taking up at appropriate levels.
Registration for the limited seats and B2B exhibition space is currently open. Information about registration is available on the IMC website www.imcnet.org.
For more information, contact:
Malika Bhavnani
Shraddha Teli
9867596309
shraddha@fort.madisonindia.com
MUMBAI: While Hindi cinema churns out its usual fare of high-octane spectacles and star vehicles, a parallel universe of Indian cinema has been quietly collecting accolades on the world stage. These are films without marquee names, films that premiered at Cannes and Sundance, films that made critics weep and festival audiences stand in ovation. Yet back home, most of them barely managed a whimper at the box office.
It’s a peculiar paradox. International juries hand them top prizes, streaming platforms chase their rights, and foreign critics pen glowing reviews. But in India, these films struggle to find screens, audiences, or even basic awareness. They’re the best-kept secrets of Indian cinema, hiding in plain sight.
Homebound might be the poster child for this phenomenon. Neeraj Ghaywan’s searing drama about migrant workers journeying home during the pandemic premiered at Cannes in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section. Martin Scorsese signed on as executive producer. It became India’s official Oscar entry for 2026. At the Toronto International Film Festival, it finished as second runner-up for the People’s Choice Award. Yet when it released theatrically in September 2025, it collected just Rs 3.04 crore. Netflix picked it up, where it finally found a wider audience, but the theatrical indifference speaks volumes about how little appetite exists for such stories in multiplexes.
Don’t Tell Mother takes us into even more uncomfortable territory. Anoop Lokur’s Kannada-language drama about a nine-year-old boy navigating violence at school and emotional suffocation at home had its world premiere at the 30th Busan International Film Festival. Produced by Mikayl Henke and Matthew Jenkins, and co-produced by Karan Kadam and Nishil Sheth, the film examines how fear, shame, and patriarchy shape childhood through a child’s unflinching gaze. It had limited prestige screenings in Bengaluru and Mumbai but hasn’t properly released yet. Mubi is expected to stream it in 2026. The theatrical revenue? Negligible. But the international critical response? Rapturous.
Sabar Bonda (or Cactus Pears, as it’s known internationally) won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic category at Sundance. Not a minor feat for any film, let alone a Marathi-language debut exploring queer desire in rural Maharashtra. Director Rohan Parshuram Kanawade crafted something rare: a film about grief and suppressed longing that feels both deeply local and utterly universal. It managed a respectable Rs 3 to 4 crore at the Indian box office in September 2025, which counts as a strong indie performance. But for a Sundance winner, you’d expect more buzz, more screens, more conversations.
Vimukt (In Search of the Sky) took home the Netpac Award for Best Asian Film at TIFF. Jitank Singh Gurjar’s portrait of an elderly couple bringing their mentally challenged son to the Maha Kumbh Mela is achingly tender, filmed with a documentary-like intimacy in the heart of Braj. It got limited screenings through PVR INOX’s “Director’s Rare” programme and earned less than Rs 50 lakh. Netflix is apparently in talks, but for now, it remains largely unseen.
Songs of Forgotten Trees made history at Venice. Anuparna Roy became the first Indian woman to win the Best Director prize in the Orizzonti section for her film about two migrant women forming a fragile bond on Mumbai’s fringes. It’s currently touring international festivals and hasn’t even attempted a proper Indian release yet. The film exists in that rarefied space where critical prestige and commercial viability rarely overlap.
Jugnuma: The Fable became the first Indian film ever to win Best Film at the Leeds International Film Festival. It premiered at Berlinale in the Encounters section. Shot on 16mm film stock, Raam Reddy’s mythic journey through Himalayan landscapes stars Manoj Bajpayee and Tillotama Shome. It released in September 2025 and is now streaming on Zee5, where it earned somewhere between Rs 5 to 6 crore. Not terrible, but hardly the returns you’d expect for a film of this pedigree.
Baksho Bondi (Shadow Box) premiered at Berlinale and earned Tillotama Shome the Best Actor (Female) award at South Asia Fest in Toronto. This gritty, experimental Bengali film about a working-class woman shouldering economic survival whilst her husband battles PTSD released in August 2025. It made roughly Rs 1.5 crore and is now available for rent on Apple TV and Prime Video. Brilliant, difficult, necessary cinema that most people will never see.
Angammal won Best Indie Film and Best Actress at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2025. Based on a story by celebrated Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, it follows an elderly widow in rural Tamil Nadu quietly rebelling against social conventions. It released on December 5, 2025, made about Rs 2 crore, and is streaming on SunNXT. Another powerful film that barely registered beyond festival circuits.
Boong premiered at TIFF and received a Special Mention at IFFM 2025. The film tells the story of a young boy searching for his missing father against Manipur’s troubled backdrop. Produced by Farhan Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment, it managed just Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1 crore during its limited September release. No OTT platform has been announced yet. Director Lakshmipriya Devi crafted something tender and politically resonant, but it vanished almost instantly from theatres.
Honourable mention: Su From So
Not every indie film gets ignored, though. Su From So is the glorious exception that proves the rule. JP Thuminad’s strange, eerie comedy about a coastal Karnataka town descending into collective madness became a breakout hit on the international festival circuit. Then something remarkable happened: it also became a massive commercial success in India. Released on July 25, 2025, it earned Rs 125 crore worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing Kannada films ever. It’s now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Su From So shows what made it different. Perhaps its genre-bending approach, mixing folklore with horror and humour in ways that felt fresh. Perhaps it simply caught the zeitgeist. Or perhaps it’s a reminder that Indian audiences will embrace unconventional cinema when it’s marketed properly and given a proper release. The question is why this level of support remains so rare.
The pattern is clear and depressing. Indian indie films win at Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Toronto. They collect prizes, critical raves, and international distribution deals. Then they come home to empty theatres, minimal marketing budgets, and audiences who’ve never heard of them. The multiplexes won’t give them screens. The distributors won’t take risks. The audiences won’t show up, partly because they don’t know these films exist.
It’s a strange kind of cultural blindness. We celebrate when an Indian film does well abroad, but only if it arrives with the right pedigree or star power attached. These smaller, fiercer, more personal films get lost in the shuffle. They’re too art house for mainstream audiences, too unmarketable for wide release, too challenging for easy consumption.
Yet they represent some of the most vital, urgent cinema being made in India today. They tackle caste, class, gender, sexuality, and trauma with unflinching honesty. They experiment with form and language. They trust their audiences to think, feel, and engage. They’re the films future generations will study when they want to understand what India actually felt like in 2025.
For now, though, they remain hidden treasures, waiting to be discovered by viewers willing to look beyond the multiplex offerings. The world has already noticed them. Perhaps it’s time India did too.
