Monday, June 22, 2026

Why Tamil film industry is referenced as Kollywood? I know that these synonyms comes from "Hollywood" word but What is role of "K" in it?

 Kodambakkam

In 1937, the Government of Madras auctioned lots of land , huge parcels of land in the area today covering Kodambakkam, Saligramam and Vadapalani which were left out of the Industrial auctions of 1918 and 1924

Inspired by BOMBAY TALKIES in Bombay, AVM decided to build his own studio in Madras and purchased a huge parcel of land that became AVM Studios in the 1940s

Soon other studios came around - Vijaya Vauhani, Gemini , Bharani and a number of others mushrooming all round the region

Kodambakkam = Tamil Film Industry


The Name KOLLYWOOD appeared for the first time in 1997

Journalist Belinda Covaco of Filmfare in 1972 first used the term BOLLYWOOD and made the term popular (It was earlier called TINSEL TOWN)

In 1997, during Chachi 420 premiere , journalists mentioned the word “Kollywood” with the famous phrase when comparing Chachi 420 with Avvai Shanmughi it's original

Ithu Bollywood illana Yenna, nammalum Kollywood acche

(We may not be Bollywood but we are Kollywood)

Kollywood became commonplace by the early 2000s as did Tollywood (Telugu)

Sandalwood (Kannada) was popularised in the mid 2000s and Mollywood, frankly I think just came up because M = Malayalam