Tamil cinema

The term "Kollywood" redirects here. Kaliwood is sometimes also used to refer to the Kathmandu-based Nepali film industry.

Tamil Film Industry is home to Tamil-language cinema based in India and is sometimes referred to as Kollywood (Tamil : கோலிவுட் kōlivūṭ). The name, Kollywood, has derived from Kodambakkam, the area in Chennai (formerly Madras), where Kollywood films are largely 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.

Distribution

Tamil films have one of the widest overseas distribution along with Telugu and 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 SOUTH Indian movie to do so. It is also the most expensive Indian movie produced so far, largely due to the 20 Crore salary paid to Rajnikanth.

Tamil films enjoy significant patronage in the neighbouring southern States like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh too. In Kerala and Karnataka the films are directly released in Tamil but in Andhra Pradesh they are generally dubbed into Telugu. 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.Recently , A 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.

History

A visiting European exhibitor first screened (date unknown) a selection of silent short films at the Victoria Public Hall in Madras. The films all featured non-fictional subjects; they were mostly photographed records of day-to-day events.

In Madras (now known as Chennai), the Electric Theatre was established for the screening of silent films. It was a favourite haunt of the British community in Madras. The theatre was shut down after a few years. This building is now part of the Post Office complex in Anna Salai. A Mr. Cohen built Lyric Theatre in the Mount Road area (now Anna Salai).This venue boasted a variety of events, including plays in English, Western classical music concerts, and ballroom dances. Silent films were also screened as an additional attraction. Samikannu Vincent, an employee of the South Indian Railways in Trichy, purchased a film projector and silent films from the Frenchman Du Pont and set up a business as film exhibitor. He erected tents for screening films. His tent cinema became popular and he travelled all over the state with his mobile unit. In later years, he produced talkies and also built a cinema in Coimbatore.

To celebrate the event of King George V's visit in 1909, a grand exhibition was organised in Madras. Its major attraction was the screening of short films accompanied by sound. A British company imported a Crone megaphone, made up of a film projector to which a gramophone with a disc containing prerecorded sound was linked, and both were run in unison, producing picture and sound simultaneously. However, there was no synched dialogue. Raghupathy Venkiah Naidu, a successful photographer, took over the equipment after the exhibition and set up a tent cinema near the Madras High Court. R. Venkiah, flush with funds, built in 1912 a permanent cinema in the Mount Road area named Gaiety. It was the first in Madras to screen films on a full-time basis. This theatre is still functioning, although under different ownership.

In tent cinemas, there were usually three classes of tickets: the floor, bench and, chair. The floor-ticket purchaser sat on sand to watch the movie, but he enjoyed certain advantages that other patrons did not. He could sit as he pleased, or he could turn over and take a short nap when the narrative was particularly dull and roll back again when the action was again to his liking—luxuries in which the upper class could never indulge.

Early Movie Studios

In early days during 20's, Tamil Movies (silent Movies)were shot at make shift location in and around Chennai,and for technical processing they were sent to Pune or Calcutta.Later some movies featuring MKT were shot at Pune and Calcutta.In 30's AVM setup their makeshift studio in the town of Karaikudi, and in the same decade big full fledged Movie studio's were built in Salem (Modern Theatres Studio) and Coimbatore (Central Studios,Neptune and Pakshiraja).By mid 40's Chennai became the hub of Studio activity with two more movie Studios built in Chennai,Vijaya Vauhini Studios and Gemini Studios.Later AVM Studios shifted their opertation to Chennai.Thus the undivided Madras Presidency being the Capital to most of South India,Chennai became the center for Tamil and notable Telugu movies.Also most of the pre-independence era drama and stage actors joining movie industry from 40's Chennai became the hub for South Indian Lauguage Cinema.

Superstar Club

Initially, Kollywood was dominated by M.K. Thyagaraja Bagavadhar and P. U. Chinnappa in 30's and 40's, then by M. G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan from 50's till late 70'sand later dominated by Rajinikanth and Kamalhassan. The young superstars are Ajith,Vijay and Vikram. These stars command salary more than Rs.5 crores per film and the films are much hyped and receive huge opening upon release. Even flop films of this star gross at least Rs.15 crore at the box office.

These star have exclusive fanclubs that often resort to violent display of support. Distributors of films of the star are able to arrange financing of film-in-progress from banks and exhibitors without much difficulty.

This club is politically influential as they are able and willing to effect swings in votes in Assembly elections.

Industrial trends

Average annual film output in Tamil film industry has risen steadily in the 20th century

• 1930s—22.5 releases per year on averages
• 1940s—22.1 releases per year on average
• 1950s—32.6 releases per year on average
• 1960s—43.0 releases per year on average
• 1970s—62.5 releases per year on average
• 1980s—104.6 releases per year on average
• 1990s—101.2 releases per year on average

In the year 2007 a record breaking 150 movies were released as of December 31st 2007

For the purpose of entertainment taxes, returns have to be filed by the exhibitors weekly (usually each Tuesday). [1] This is a chart of trend of box office collections of Kollywood with figures in millions of Indian Rupees.

It is running house full shows and is expected to recover the money in a short period

Year	Tamil film Box Office (in crore Rupees)
1980	80.8
1985	156.4
1990	313.3
1995	782
2000	1,411
2005	2,320.5

The Tamil film industry accounts for approx. 1% of the gross domestic product of the state of Tamil Nadu. Costs of production have grown exponentially from just under Rs.40 lakhs in 1980 to over Rs.11 crores by 2005 for a typical star-studded big-budget film. Similarly, costs of processing per print have risen from just under Rs.2,500 in 1980 to nearly Rs.70,000 by 2005.

Interestingly, The Tamil Nadu government has made provisions for an entertainment tax exemption for Tamil movies having pure Tamil word(s) in the title. This is in accordance with Government Order 72 passed on 22 July 2006. The first film to be released after the new Order was Unnakkum Ennakum. The original title had been Something something Unakkum Ennakkum, a half-English and a half-Tamil title.

Exhibitors

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.

See also

• List of Tamil-language films
• Popular Tamil films
• Cinema of India
• Filmfare Awards South

External links

- - - - - - - - - - - *Cinema News at BehindWoods - News, interviews and images - *Tamil films on IndiaGlitz.com - reviews, news, and images - *Tamil films on Galatta.com - news, interviews and images - *[http://tamilcinemanews.hosuronline.com