Tamil Cinema

Tamil cinema (also known as the Tamil film industry, the Cinema of Tamil Nadu or the Chennai film industry) is a film industry based in Chennai, India, which produces feature films in the Tamil language. Most of the movie studios are located in Kodambakkam, also referred to as Kollywood, a portmanteau of Hollywood and Kodambakkam.

Moving pictures have been exhibited in Chennai from 1892 onwards. The first silent movie in Tamil, Keechaka Vadham was made by R. Nataraja Mudaliar in 1918. The first talkie was a multi-lingual Kalidas which released on 31 October 1931, barely 7 months after India's first talking picture Alam Ara By the end of the 1930s, the legislature of the State of Madras passed the Entertainment Tax Act of 1939. Tamil cinema later had a profound effect on other filmmaking industries of India, establishing Chennai as a secondary hub for Telugu cinema, Malayalam cinema, Kannada cinema, and Hindi cinema. In its modern era, Tamil films from Chennai have been distributed to various overseas theatres in Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Malaysia, Japan, Oceania, the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. The industry also inspired filmmaking in Tamil diaspora populations in other regions, such as in Europe and Canada.

Film studios in Chennai are bound by legislation, such as the Cinematography Film Rules of 1948, the Cinematography Act of 1952, and the Copyright Act of 1957. In Tamil Nadu, cinema ticket prices are regulated by the government. Single screen theatres may charge a maximum of 50, while theatres with more than three screens may charge a maximum of 120 per ticket.