Karnataka Film Industry And Rise Of Tulu Cinema | Under Lens

The Karnataka Film Industry comprises of films produced in 6 languages Lambani, Kodava, Beary, Konkani, Tulu and the most dominant Kannada Film Industry. Of late Kannada film industry is referred to as Sandalwood having a rich history of about 76 years and Tulu Film industry as Costalwood with history of 40 years.

In Coastalwood, the practice followed was that only one movie would be released one year and most of them would be “art” movies. However in past one year or so, even commercial movie are been shot in Tulu with the unexpected success of first commercial oriented movie “Oriyad Ori Asal” directed by Vijay Kumar Kodialbail, which ran continuously for 25 weeks in theatres (and in a multiplex as well). The movie did fairly well by box office standards. It was the first movie in Tulu language to be screened for 1000+ shows. Even before this there were two commercial success movies like “Bangar Patler” directed by Richard Castelineo and “Kadala Mage”. “Kadal Mage” was produced by Bantwal’s MLA and former minister Nagaraj Shetty.

In year 2011 two movies Oriyad Ori Asal starring Likith Shetty  (Udaya Music Fame), Naveen D Padil , Aravind Bolar, Ramya Barna (Pancharangi Fame) etc. and Kanchilda Bale starring Muthappa Rai was released. In the year 2010 Gaggara directed by Shivadwaj Shetty was released. In the year 2009 Koti Chennaya-2 was released which had won 2 state awards. “Sudda” was a film shot on very low budget with a handy cam had won National award for Best Regional film. With success of “Oriyad Ori Asal” more Tulu movies have announced to be under production. With the most awaited being  “Amet Asal Emet Kusal” directed by Mumbai Based director Ranjan Raghu Shetty starring icons of Tulu theatre like Navin D Padil, Bhojaraj Vamanjoor and Aravind Bolar.

Written By: Sandeep Shetty