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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A Glimpse of Kollywood - Tamil Movies

Kollywood is the name for South Indian Tamil Cinema. Tamil Cinema is a film industry based in Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu, India. A place in Chennai called Kodambakkam is where a number of film studios can be found and where a number of people are engaged into Tamil cinema. The word Kollywood is actually a combination of the place Kodambakkam and Hollywood put together.

In India, there are actually three foremost film industries which are Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood. Tamil cinema may seem like a little low on the budget and may use some help in its distribution in the Hindi movie industry but it is well-known amongst Tamil speakers in India and Sri Lanka even in Singapore, Malaysia and other nearby Asian countries. Recently, the Tamil language is becoming known back in Japan. Often times, Tamil movies are remade into other Indian languages which in turn has, in a roundabout way, reached out to a more audiences. Since not all people in India can speak and understand the Tamil language, most of the Kollywood films are dubbed into Hindi some which are the movie hits of Sapnay and Bombay.

Kollywood had its roots back in 1916 when Chennai only had silent movies and "the era of talkies" began on the year of 1931 and the very first film to have this is Kalidas. Kollywood movies actually have a great impact in the movie-making industry of India. In the 1900's Chennai became the core of movie industries of various languages which include the Telugu cinema, Kannada cinema, Hindi cinema, Sinhalese cinema and Sri Lankan Tamil cinema.

Tamil cinema has long been associated with politics back in its early days of filmmaking wherein storylines, themes and casts are gotten from traditional Tamil ballads that eventually became the tool for producing potential politicians. In fact, Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai and present day Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi were film directors and script writers while M.G. Ramachandran served as a Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for more than a decade was a commercial film actor.

The famous actors of Tamil cinema areSimbu, Sarathkumar, Vishal, Vijayakanth, Surya, Vikram, Ajith, Vijay, Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth. While the well-known actresses areSameera Reddy, Genelia, Priyamani, Sneha, Anushka, Shriya, Nayanthara, Asin, Trisha and Tamannah.

Tamil Movies are never complete without musical parts where actors and actresses dance to catchy tunes in their colourful costumes. In the music industry of Tamil cinema the biggest names in this side of town are Ilaiyaraaja and A.R. Rahman who happen to be music directors and are not only known in Tamil cinema but also in the international scene. More popular names are soundtrack composers Yuvan Shankar Raja, Harris Jayaraj, Kathik Raja and Vidasagar. A number of international musical composers have also made use of the studios in Chennai to record and compose music for other film industries. Today, Tamil cinema is slowly making its push to reaching out to a broader set of audiences not only in India and in Asia but in other continents as well which in turn makes this film industry more promising.



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