Bollywood vs Tollywood
This article intends to clear misconceptions in the minds of people from other countries about film industry in India which is not limited to Bollywood as this what people abroad have come to think. There is also Kollywood, Mollywood, and Tollywood in India that represents cinema made in regions other than Mumbai, which is the center of all Hindi films. According to wikipedia, Tollywood represents cinema made in both the states of Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. There are obvious differences between Bollywood and Tollywood that will be talked about in this article.
India is a huge country with a population that exceeds that of the entire EU, US, and all other Latin countries combined. India is also a multilingual country with lots of languages spoken in different parts of the country. People bracket all south Indian languages together, which is a big mistake as all languages down south are different and each has millions of speakers. This is why there is a thriving and flourishing Kollywood for Tamil speaking people and there is Tollywood, a common term to refer to cinema made in Bengali and in Telugu languages.
While it is true that Bollywood is far ahead in grandeur and also in numbers, it is not fair to compare Tollywood with Bollywood. With limited resources and audiences, films made in Tollywood are doing reasonable business and also earning profits though they do not get the kind of exposure that films made in Bollywood get. This has to do with Hindi being spoken and understood by a far bigger population than either Telugu or Bengali. There is also the fact that Bollywood is older in comparison to Tollywood and also has more money. The films made in Bollywood are on a bigger scale and have audiences even abroad whereas Tollywood cinema is restricted to audiences in their respective states only.
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In brief: Tollywood vs Bollywood • People think of Bollywood only when they see a south Asian film whereas Tollywood has a separate and distinct identity from Bollywood. • Bollywood is more popular in all parts of the world because Hindi has a far bigger audience than either Telugu or Bengali which are the languages used in Tollywood cinema. • Films made in Bollywood are much bigger in scale and grandeur than in Tollywood. • Bollywood stars have a much large fan following and command more price than their Tollywood counterparts.
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