Tamil cinema (Kollywood)
Tamil cinema, commonly referred to as Kollywood, is a vibrant filmmaking industry based in Chennai, India. The term Kollywood is a blend of the Kodambakkam neighborhood in Chennai and Hollywood, highlighting the industry's roots. While Indian cinema has a rich history spanning over a century, Tamil cinema has often been overshadowed by the more dominant Hindi film industry, Bollywood. However, in recent decades, Kollywood has emerged as a significant force in Indian cinema, producing high-quality films that have gained popularity both nationally and internationally.
The industry has a storied past, with its first feature film, Keechavathanam, believed to have been made in 1917, and the first sound film, Kalidas, released in 1931. Tamil films are characterized by their musical and dance elements, often adapted from mythology and folklore. The political landscape and social issues have been increasingly woven into film narratives since India gained independence in 1947. Kollywood has produced notable box-office hits, such as Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, which became one of the highest-grossing films in Indian history, along with other successful titles like 2.0, Jailer, and Ponniyin Selvan: I.
Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Tamil cinema remains one of India's most prolific film industries, consistently producing around 240 films each year. The industry has also gained international recognition, with several films submitted for Academy Awards consideration, further solidifying Tamil cinema's position in the global film landscape.
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Tamil cinema (Kollywood)
Tamil cinema refers to a thriving Tamil-language filmmaking industry based in the southeastern Indian city of Chennai. The industry is nicknamed Kollywood as a combination of its location in Chennai’s Kodambakkam neighborhood and the American film mecca of Hollywood. India has had a successful film industry for more than a century, with much of the focus on the Hindi-speaking films produced by Bollywood in Mumbai. Tamil cinema has been around for the same amount of time, but because Tamil is a minority language in India, it has often been overshadowed by Hindi films. However, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Kollywood films began to rival Bollywood in popularity and quality. One of the highest-grossing films in Indian film history—2017s Baahubali 2: The Conclusion—was produced by Kollywood.
Background
India is the second-most populous nation in the world, with an estimated population of more than 1.3 billion. The nation has more than four hundred spoken languages with thousands of individual dialects. While the nation has no common language, the government recognizes twenty-two languages as official. Hindi is the main language used by the national government, with English also used for official purposes. Hindi is also the most common language in India, where it is spoken by about 45 percent of the population.
The Tamil language is a Dravidian language spoken mainly by Tamil people in southeastern India, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Tamil was recognized as an official language in 2004. It is spoken by less than 7 percent of the Indian population. Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a mostly urban region. The state’s capital, Chennai, is India’s sixth-largest city. Prior to 1996, Chennai was named Madras.
Overview
Films were introduced to India in 1896 when pioneering French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière screened their work in Mumbai, which was then called Bombay. The following year, works by British filmmakers were screened in Madras. These first films were not traditional narrative-driven “movies” but were short clips of people going about their daily lives. The exhibitions fascinated Indians and inspired filmmakers across the country to begin making their own short films.
The first Indian feature-length film was Raja Harishchandra, which was directed by Dada Saheb Phalke in 1913. Raja Harishchandra was a silent film produced in the Marathi language. In 1917, director Nataraja Mudaliar made what is believed to be the first Tamil-language feature film. Keechavathanam adapted a storyline from the Indian epic poem the Mahābhārata. Film scholars estimate that more than thirteen hundred silent films were made in Tamil. However, film preservation was not a priority in India at the time, and only fourteen of those films have survived to the present day.
The first Indian “talkie” was released in 1931 in the Hindi language. A few months after that film’s release, filmmaker H.M. Reddy debuted the first Tamil-language talking film, Kalidas. Kalidas was a biographical film about an ancient playwright of the same name. It starred actress T. P. Rajalakshmi, who was the most popular stage actress in India at the time. Rajalakshmi later became the first female director in Indian cinema, directing the film Miss Kamala in 1936. The first Tamil sound films had to be produced in studios in Bombay because southeastern India did not have adequate production facilities. That changed in the mid-1930s when director A. Narayanan opened the first film studio in Madras. Within three years, nine other studios were located in the city.
Most of the earliest Tamil-language films were filmed versions of existing stage plays. Most were adaptations of Indian mythology, folktales, and history. Over-the-top musical and dance elements were often a centerpiece of Tamil films. After India gained its independence from Great Britain in 1947, the tone of Tamil cinema shifted with political and social commentary often inserted into the main plots. It was not until 1954 that the first Tamil-language film, without a single song or dance number, was produced.
For much of the twentieth century, Mumbai (formerly Bombay) was the main hub of India’s film industry. The nickname Bollywood was coined around the 1960s and 1970s—a combination of Bombay and Hollywood. The Tamil-language film industry received the nickname Kollywood because its main production facilities are located in the Kodambakkam business district in Madras/Chennai. The 2018 Tamil film 2.0, a science-fiction film about a humanoid robot battling a scientist who uses people’s cell phones to attack the human population, was also successful at the global box office. At the time, it was the most expensive film in Indian film history, but it earned around USD$122.8 million. Other successful films include Jailer (2023), Leo (2023), and Ponniyin Selvan: I (2022).
Tamil films remained immensely popular in southeastern India but were often overshadowed by Bollywood. However, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Tamil-language films began to rival their Bollywood counterparts in production budgets, quality, and national popularity.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated the industry, Kollywood was India’s third-largest film industry in terms of revenue, trailing Bollywood and the Kolkata-based Telugu-language film industry known as Tollywood. However, in terms of output, Kollywood consistently produces around 240 films each year, often outpacing India’s other major studios.
Many Tamil-language films have been submitted to the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. The coming-of-age drama Last Film Show (2022) was shortlisted for the 95th Academy Awards but ultimately did not receive a nomination. Films that received nominations in the past include Lagaan (2001), Salaam Bombay! (1988), and Mother India (1957).
The highest-grossing Tamil films include Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, a 2017 medieval epic inspired partly by the Smriti text Mahābhārata. The film was a follow-up to another film that experienced success in the global box office, Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), grossing USD$99.2 million. Baahubali 2: The Conclusion earned USD$257 million.
Bibliography
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