Indian Cinema Steps Into a New Era
Indian cinema witnessed a significant moment on 22 September 2026 as the 72nd National Film Awards were presented at Ekta Nagar, Kevadia, Gujarat, with President of India Droupadi Murmu conferring the honours on some of the country’s most distinguished actors, filmmakers, technicians and creative professionals.
The ceremony recognised achievements in Indian cinema for the 2024 film year and marked an important departure from tradition: for the first time, the National Film Awards ceremony was taken beyond New Delhi. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has also announced that future editions are intended to travel to different states and cities across India.
That shift gives the 72nd edition a significance extending beyond the awards themselves. It signals an effort to take one of Indian cinema’s most prestigious national institutions closer to the diverse regions, languages and audiences that collectively shape the country’s cinematic identity.
From Delhi to Ekta Nagar
Instituted in 1954, the National Film Awards have grown into one of India’s foremost recognitions of excellence in cinema. Across more than seven decades, the awards have celebrated creative and technical achievement across feature films, non-feature films and writing on cinema, reflecting the linguistic, cultural and regional diversity of filmmaking in India.
Hosting the ceremony at Ekta Nagar therefore represents more than a geographical change.
Against the backdrop of the Statue of Unity, the 2026 ceremony placed Indian cinema within a setting associated with national integration while opening the possibility of future National Film Awards ceremonies being hosted across different parts of the country.
For an industry whose stories emerge from hundreds of communities and multiple filmmaking traditions, decentralising such a major cultural event could give different regions greater visibility within the national cinematic conversation.
92 Winners, One Celebration of Indian Cinema
The 72nd edition brought together 92 award winners, spanning an extensive spectrum of filmmaking talent and cinematic disciplines.
At the centre of the honours was veteran actor Anant Nag, who received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2024 in recognition of his contribution to Indian cinema across a career spanning more than five decades. The Government of India had announced the honour on 16 September.
Nag’s body of work stretches across multiple Indian languages and generations of cinema, making his recognition one of the defining moments of this year’s ceremony.
Article 370 Leads the Feature Film Honours
Among the major winners, Article 370 was adjudged Best Feature Film, while Bhangaar received the award for Best Non-Feature Film and Ram-Nami was selected as Best Documentary.
The acting categories brought together prominent performances from different corners of Indian cinema.
Mammootty, for Bramayugam, and Kartik Aaryan, for Chandu Champion, received Best Actor in a Leading Role honours, while Yami Gautam was recognised as Best Actress in a Leading Role for Article 370.
The recognition of films and artists working across different languages and creative traditions reinforced one of the defining characteristics of the National Film Awards: their attempt to look beyond a single film industry and recognise Indian cinema as a much broader cultural ecosystem.
Anant Nag: Honouring More Than Five Decades of Cinema
The presentation of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award to Anant Nag brought a strong legacy dimension to the ceremony.
Beginning his acting journey in the early 1970s, Nag built a career spanning more than 300 films across six Indian languages, alongside memorable work in television, including Malgudi Days. His work has been particularly influential in Kannada cinema while extending well beyond it.
His recognition at the 72nd National Film Awards connected Indian cinema’s established legacy with a ceremony simultaneously looking towards a more geographically distributed future.
An Odisha Connection at Vadodara
The historic Gujarat edition also carried a noteworthy Odisha connection.
As dignitaries arrived at Vadodara ahead of the ceremony, Odisha MP Rabindra Narayan Behera, actress and jury member Gopi Desai, film producer Captain Rahul Bali, and MP Haribhai Patel welcomed the decision to organise the National Film Awards in Gujarat.
According to reporting from Vadodara, the dignitaries described the move beyond New Delhi as an opportunity to take major national events to different parts of the country while highlighting Ekta Nagar and the Statue of Unity as destinations of national importance.
The presence of an Odisha representative at this moment also underlines the broader character of the occasion: although Gujarat hosted the ceremony, the National Film Awards remain fundamentally a celebration of creative achievement from across India.
Celebrating India’s Cinematic Diversity
The 72nd National Film Awards also illustrate why Indian cinema cannot be understood solely through its biggest commercial industries.
The National Film Awards were designed to recognise filmmaking across India’s languages and regions, and the 2024 honours continued that tradition through feature films, documentaries, non-feature productions, performances and technical achievements.
This diversity is particularly important at a time when regional cinema is increasingly crossing linguistic boundaries through theatrical distribution, festivals and digital platforms.
Stories rooted deeply in local cultures can now travel nationally and internationally without necessarily losing their regional identities. National recognition can consequently play an important role in bringing such filmmakers, performers and technicians into a wider conversation.
Why the 2024 Films Are Being Awarded in 2026
The title “72nd National Film Awards” refers to the edition of the awards, while this edition evaluates cinematic achievements from 2024.
The winners were announced on 18 July 2026 following assessment by the respective juries, before the formal presentation ceremony on 22 September.
That distinction explains why films including Article 370, Bramayugam and Chandu Champion feature prominently in an awards ceremony taking place in 2026.
More Than a Change of Venue
Perhaps the most enduring story emerging from the 72nd National Film Awards is therefore not a single trophy.
It is the changing geography of the celebration itself.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has stated that future editions will be organised in different states and cities, taking the National Film Awards beyond Delhi and towards a broader national audience.
For Indian cinema, this creates an interesting possibility. Each future host region could bring its own cinematic heritage, filmmakers, audiences and cultural identity into greater focus while still participating in a common national platform.
From Delhi to Ekta Nagar, the 72nd National Film Awards have therefore opened a new chapter—one in which the celebration of Indian cinema may increasingly travel across the same diverse landscape from which its stories originate.
Many stories. Many languages. Many regions. One extraordinary cinematic nation.