Regional cinemas
India is a land of diversity. There lies a huge blend of diverse cultures, regions and languages. This diversity has thus given rise to various regional film industries apart from the largely known Hindi Film industry or Bollywood. Regional cinemas are the keys to the Indian cinema industry. India is unique in its kaleidoscope of diverse languages and cultures. There are at least 15 languages and over 2000 dialects and films are produced in most of the official languages. In 1993, for example, 183 films were made in Hindi, 168 in Tamil and 148 in Telugu. The largest numbers of regional films are produced in these three languages. However, 78 films were made in Kannada, 71 in Malayalam, 57 in Bengali, 35 in Marathi and almost 10 in Assamese.
Although we can talk of regional cinemas / films, there is an incessant crossover of talents - Bengali film directors direct Hindi or Oriya films; Tamil directors direct Telugu films. Actors and actresses from the South play leading roles in films made in the North. Furthermore, some of the well known figures in Indian cinema, particularly in the artistic tradition, come from the regional cinemas. The diverse regional cinemas in India strive to maintain their distinctive identities and provide an important dimension of the cultural wealth and diversity of India`s regional cinemas.
The intellectual quality that permeates most of Bengali cinema - the understanding but also the relentless exposition of individuals and situations - can seem to contrast with the passions and swashbuckling heroes of Tamil and Telugu cinema. At the same time, the human element, so vibrantly presented by Satyajit Ray, K. Subramanyam and Adoor Gopalakrishnan (to name just three directors), is undeniable. They were iconoclasts. They refused to take matters at face value - allowing viewers to realize that truth has many faces that the mundane often transcends while the seemingly sacrosanct has been rendered redundant.
Film making in regional languages began sometime later than Hindi cinema. Mythologies and contemporary issues formed the subject matter of early films, and the interaction between film-makers ensured that technical expertise was shared by all. Studios and stars were the life here as they were in Hindi cinema.
India is home to one of the largest film industries in the world. Every year thousands of movies are produced in India. Indian film industry comprises of Hindi films, regional movies and art cinema. The Indian film industry is supported mainly by a vast film-going Indian public, though Indian films have been gaining increasing popularity in the rest of the world, especially in countries with large numbers of emigrant Indians.
India is a large country where many languages are spoken. Many of the larger languages support their own film industry. Some of the popular regional film industries in India are Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Punjabi. The Hindi/Urdu film industry, based in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is called Bollywood. Similar neologisms have been coined for the Tamil film industry Kollywood and the Telugu film industry. Tollygunge is metonym for the Bengali film industry, long centered in the Tollygunge district of Kolkata. The Bengali language industry is notable as having nurtured the director Satyajit Ray, an internationally renowned filmmaker and a winner of many awards.
The Bollywood industry is the largest in terms of films produced and box office receipts, just as Urdu/Hindi speakers outnumber speakers of other Indian languages. Many workers in other regional industries, once established, generally move to Bollywood for greater spotlight or opportunity. An interesting example of this phenomenon is the famous music director A.R. Rahman. He started his career in Tamil film industry and later moved to the Bollywood.
