Cinema of India

India is a major regional center for cinema. The Indian film industry is the largest in the world (1200 movies released in the year 2002). The 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 — notably in countries with large numbers of expatriate Indians.

Regional film industries

India is a large country where many languages are spoken. Each of the larger languages supports its own film industry: Urdu/Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam. The Hindi/Urdu film industry, based in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is called Bollywood (a melding of Hollywood and Bombay). Similar neologisms have been coined for the Kannada (Karnataka State) film industry (Sandalwood) based on Karnataka being known for Sandalwood, Tamil film industry (Kollywood, from the Kodambakkam district of Chennai) and the Telugu film industry (Tollywood). Tollygunge is a 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, among them the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian award), the Legion d'honneur (France), and the Lifetime achievement Academy Award.

Related Topics:
Urdu - Hindi - Bengali - Kannada - Tamil - Telugu - Malayalam - Mumbai - Bollywood - Hollywood - Sandalwood - Kollywood - Chennai - Tollywood - Metonym - Kolkata - Satyajit Ray - Bharat Ratna - Legion d'honneur - Academy Award

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The Bollywood industry is usually the largest in terms of films produced and box office receipts, just as Urdu/Hindi speakers outnumber speakers of other Indian languages within India. (Tollywood is close on Bollywood's heels, and sometimes will turn out more films in a year.) Many workers in other regional industries, once established, also work for Bollywood in order to get greater exposure or opportunity. For example, A.R. Rahman, one of the best known music directors in Indian cinema, started his career in Tamil cinema in Chennai but has since undertaken ventures in other spheres including in Bollywood. Similarly, films that succeed in one language are often remade in others. Major Hindi/Urdu films like Padosan and Roja, for example, were re-made from the original Bengali and Tamil respectively.

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