Kollywood – Tamil Film Industry

Tamil Film Industry is home to Tamil-language cinema based in India and is sometimes referred to as Kollywood. The name, Kollywood, has derived from Kodambakkam, the area in Chennai (formerly Madras), where Kollywood films are widely produced. Tamil language movies are also filmed in Sri Lanka.

Silent movies were produced in Kollywood since 1916 and the era of talkies dawned in 1931. By the end of the 1930s, the industry was booming to the extent that the State of Madras legislature passed the pioneering Entertainment Tax Act 1939 with little opposition.

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Tamil films have one of the widest overseas distribution along with Telugu behind Hindi films. They have enjoyed consistent popularity among Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. Tamil films have recently become popular in Japan (Rajinikanth’s Muthu, for example, screened for a record period), South Africa, Canada, and the UK. Many movies such as Chandramukhi and Anniyan were also simultaneously released in the USA. Sivaji: The Boss, which had released recently has also been touted as a record-breaking film for its high-budget, large opening, and reception worldwide. It also cracked into the UK’s Top 10 weekend box opening movies becoming the first ever Tamil movie to do so. It is also the most expensive Indian movie produced so far.

Tamil films enjoy significant patronage in the neighbouring southern States like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh too. In Kerala the films are directly released in Tamil but in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka they are preferred by dubbing into regional languages.

There is a fair amount of dispersion amongst the Indian film industries. Many successful Tamil films have been remade by the Hindi and Telugu film industries, for example. Kollywood has also remade a fair number of Hindi-, Telugu-, Malayalam-, and other-language films.

It is estimated by the Manorama Yearbook 2000 (a popular almanac) that over 5,000 Tamil films were produced in the 20th century. For a complete list of Tamil films, see the List of Tamil-Language Films. Tamil films have also been dubbed into other languages, thus reaching a much wider audience. Examples of those dubbed into Hindi include such hits as Minsaara Kanavu, Roja and Bombay. Anniyan, a recent Tamil film became the first Indian film to be dubbed into French. See popular Tamil films.

There has been a growing presence of English in dialogue and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see movies that feature dialogue studded with English words and phrases, or even whole sentences. Some movies are also simultaneously made in two or three languages (either using subtitles or several soundtracks). Quite often, Tamil movies feature Chennai Tamil, a colloquial version of Tamil spoken in Madras’ i.e ‘Chennai.

Cinema Halls

There are about 2,400 cinema halls in Tamilnadu, which is the main market for Tamil film industry. Of these around 125 are located in the Chennai district. Below is a list of the most prominent exhibitors in the box office.

• Sathyam – 1,266 seats (Chennai )
• Albert – 1,225 seats (Chennai)
• Devi – 1,212 seats (Chennai)
• Melody – 998 seats (Chennai)
• Abirami – 927 seats (Chennai)
• Kasi – 917 seats (Chennai)
• Sangam – 877 seats (Chennai)
• Maharani – 733 seats (Chennai)
• Udhayam – 700 seats (Chennai)
• Santham – 567 seats (Chennai)
• Padmam – 540 seats (Chennai)
• Suriyan – 480 seats (Chennai)
• Devi Bala – 369 seats (Chennai)
• Subham – 306 seats (Chennai)
• Mayajaal – 178 seats (Chennai)
• Inox – 909 seats (Chennai)

Show rentals range from Rs.700 in C-centres to as much as Rs.7,000 in A-centres for an average 700-seat screen. Unlike Hollywood, superstardom is deeply ingrained into Kollywood economics, so distributors are prepared to not only finance the films of super stars with proven track records but are also, in turn, able to secure minimum guarantees for those films from exhibitors.

Rise of multiplexes in the late 1990s has stunted the growth of large screens.