About South Indian Cinema

A Quick Introduction to South Indian Cinema

What is South Indian Cinema?

Indian Film Industry is typically considered to be Bollywood. It is known for the huge masala affairs with colorful extravaganza dealing with larger than life characters mostly
focused on hero centric deeds. But films more in number and quality are produced in the southern part of India in their respective regional languages. Sadly, they don't get much attention due to the lack of marketing and language barriers. These barriers are slowly being overthrown with remakes and dubbed films. It is essential to view the films in India as Indian Cinema but a division has been slowly induced into the culture. One film to note here is Baahubali which gained worldwide appreciation as an Indian film rather than a regional or a Bollywood one. With the increasing quality of films in South Indian Cinema it is essential for it's increased recognition to break it's budget barriers and to find more mainstream audience.

South Indian Film Industries

Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada Film Industries are collectively known as South Indian Cinema. Beginnings were rough for most of them with Malayalam Cinema churning out film that were recognized in the international levels. Most of them were historical or artsy films. The other film industries centered on heroic films that centered on larger than life heroes with amateur film making and cliche stories. Even in the midst of the that there were makers that tried to bring about quality films and there were a huge number of them. Many of these films are still unknown to the film world and slowly gaining recognition. A talk about Indian Cinema is incomplete without it's witty films and the South Indian Industries.

Tamil Cinema (Kollywood):

Most number of films in India are released in Tamil Language. Around 200-250 films are released every year. This is also one of the industries that cater to a wider audience and releases films in a number of different genres. The Tamil audience is a highly movie going category and the most profit in Indian films comes from Tamil Cinema. The popularity graph is higher. Even though the film culture revolves around a few actors, the urban audience favors the movie genre rather than the personalities. Tamil Culture is highly influenced by it's film and the actors.

Malayalam Cinema (Mollywood):

The most quality film industry in the whole country. Films are made in wide topics in unseen formats and is most known for it's experimental genre cinema. This is also an industry that is afraid to touch on social taboos and the films are not hero centric as the other ones.

Telugu Cinema (Tollywood):

Once known for it's unbelievable acts and minimalist plots, today Telugu Cinema makes some of the best hero centric films in the whole country. They have an increased budget specialty and although not ready to take much risks with the plot and freshness, these films have the most entertainment value undoubtedly.

 Kannada Cinema (Sandalwood):

Once an industry known for the worse remakes and actors. Considered to be one of the worst film industries in the whole country is safely on the way of a change today. Many films in the past few years have been considered to be few of the bests in the Indian Cinema. A change is seen and lets hope they are on a path of self redemption.

Two of the other languages in which South Indian films are made are the Tulu and Bagada languages but they are not well established industries and not more than a dozen films have been released in the languages altogether. It is safe to avoid them with granted recognition.

NB: The pictures contains some of the notable films released in the year 2017 in the respective industries.