Post-Regional Tamil Cinema

Abstract

In recent years, India's regional Telegu and Tamil cinema have experienced a meteoric rise, often surpassing Bollywood in both innovation and box-office success. This development reflects a broader reconfiguration of the Indian cinematic landscape, where regional industries are no longer subordinate to the Hindi-language mainstream but are instead producing content that commands national and global attention. In this chapter, we argue that while regional blockbusters were once local, territorial, and contextually situated, recent productions have disavowed any clear sense of locality or recognisably South Indian cultural traits. Tamil films like Vikram (2022), Jailer (2023), Leo (2023), and Indian 2 (2024) are marked by their larger-than-life storytelling, cutting-edge technology, and gripping narratives that have redefined the notion of regionality. Although these films were produced in Kodambakkam, the heart of the Tamil film industry, and the hallmarks of “regional cinema” lie in its provincial South Indian linguistic and cultural characteristics and target audience, these films do not conform to that mould. This chapter explores the emergence of post-regionalism in Tamil cinema through an analysis of select contemporary films, arguing that these productions signal a new phase in Indian cinema, wherein regional industries actively reshape and redefine the contours of cinematic identity and spectatorship.