Gautham Vasudev Menon – Overcoming challenges in style
Bold. Audacious, Outspoken, Courageous. These are just some of the adjectives one can use to describe maverick director Gautham Vasudev Menon whose films set in urban India have found particular favour with those living outside of India, while still delighting a significant percentage of Indian movie fans. Gautham’s walk to his current level of success […]
History of Tamil Cinema – Part 9
CINEMATIC HIGHLIGHTS OF 1941 In this episode Ellis R Dungan and J Moylan together again One of the first releases of 1941 was the film Surya Puthri, another film directed by Elis R Dungan, assisted by J. Moylan. The film starred Kothamangalam Subbu and Kothamngaralam Seenu in the lead roles with KR Chellam, TR […]
History of Tamil Cinema – Part 8
In this episode * G Ramanathan transforms Tamil film music * Tamil cinema’s first dual role * Ellis R Dungan records more firsts for Tamil cinema * NS Krishnan’s own production makes waves * Social drama in a thriller format Presenting Carnatic music in a modern package: G Ramanathan Gopalan Ramanathan was orphaned at a […]
Sivakarthikeyan – Namma Veetu Pillai
The rise to fame of Sivakarthikeyan is an inspirational one. Like Rajinikanth, Sivakarthikeyan had many challenges in his career and has slowly worked himself up to his current position as one of the leading actors in his tier. Sivakarthikeyan was born on 17 February 1985 in the Sivagangai district to G Doss, a jail superintendent […]
What happened to Tamil religious movies?
Disclaimers In Tamil Nadu – a state where Hindus form 78.9% of the total population, it is surprising to note that Hindu religious films are now virtually non-existent. From the early days of silent cinema and the early talkies, religion, history and myth were the basis of almost all movies. The boom in religious films […]
Sigaram Top 15 Tamil films of 2024
Compiled and ranked by Devan Nair and Dhaarani Nair Introduction Sigaram is 90 days old today and it is time to look back at the best films of 2024. Last year, we featured a Top 10 list as at 01 November 2024, but there were some films that released after that date and more films […]
Veteran actress Pushpalatha passes away
Tamil cinema mourns the loss of verstaile actress, Pushpalatha who passed way earlier today at the age of 87. Pushpalatha has acted in more than 100 films in Tamil, Telugu , Kannada and Malayalam.She made her debut to the Tamil screen through the 1958 film, Sengottai Singam produced by Devar Films. She met AVM Rajan […]
Silambarasan (Simbhu) turns 42 today
Silambarasan TR – or Simbhu – is the son of actor-writer-director-music composer T Rajender. He made his debut as a child star, appearing in his first film – Uravai Kaatha Kili – when he was only 1 year old. He went on as a child star under his father’s direction in eleven other films before […]
History of Tamil Cinema – Part 7
In this episode The colourful history of one of Tamil cinema’s most well-known studios CV Raman (not to be confused with the Nobel Prize winner of the same name) is best known for founding a studio in Chennai on the banks of the Adayar River. It was initially called Lalitha Cinetone and changed hands many […]
Amy Jackson: The British beauty who won Tamil hearts.
Amy Louise Jackson was born in the Isle of Man on 31 January 1992. She began at modelling at the age of 14 and later won Miss Teen Liverpool and Miss Teen Great Britain titles before going on to win Miss Teen World in 2009. She was also the runner-up to the Miss England title […]