Ticket to Kerala: Tracing Malayalam cinema's rise to a national force

Ticket to Kerala: The Story of Malayalam Cinema

by S R Praveen

Published by Rupa

284 pages ₹495

 

When filmmaker Payal Kapadia became the first Indian to win the Grand Prix for her film All We Imagine as Light  (2024), she chose to highlight the Malayalam film industry. The history of Malayalam cinema is rich, with the formation of film societies in almost every village in Kerala in the 1960s, the rise of  independent films in the early 1970s, and the evolution of middle-of-the-road cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, Malayalam cinema has evolved like never before, with uncommon themes and novel approaches to storytelling.

 

The book by S R Praveen, who has been a film critic for many years, is a culmination of years spent watching, questioning and writing about cinema — and even includes interviews with various film directors. In the Author’s Note, he writes that his attempt with the book has been to introduce Malayalam cinema beyond its recent past to an audience outside Kerala. While it tells the story of the present, it also discusses the historical context surrounding it. “Malayalam cinema’s present could not have been told without talking about its past, with which it is deeply intertwined,” he writes. 

In 1965, the first film society was launched in Kerala by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan and his associate Kulathoor Bhaskaran Nair. This heralded a film society movement in the state, and had a lasting impact on Malayalam cinema. Film societies sprung up across towns, villages, college campuses, banks and various institutions — with the best of world cinema being screened week after week. 

“It eventually led to the emergence of the new wave in Malayalam cinema, with Adoor again leading from the front with his debut film Swayamvaram in 1972,” writes Praveen. This was followed by avant-garde filmmaker John Abraham’s debut Vidyarthikale Ithile Ithile the same year, and G Aravindan’s film Uttarayanam  two years later. That was how “middle-of-the-road cinema” came about. It’s ironic that many of these remarkable classics from the yesteryears remain largely unknown outside the state, partly because there are no good English-subtitled prints of these films. 

The 1980s and 1990s were marked by a parallel cinema movement, led by auteurs such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan, John Abraham, G Aravindan and Shaji Karun. In 1996, the first edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala was organised in Kozhikode. Few people probably know that one of the biggest hits in the industry at the turn of the millennium was Kinnara Thumpikal, a soft-porn movie, made at a cost of a few lakh rupees but which minted crores at the box office. Further, in the decade of the 2010s, Malayalam cinema began to explore queer themes.

 

In 2018, a group of women professionals and students in Kottayam district came together to form Mazhavil Vanitha Film Society, one of the first women-led film societies in the state, which has organised film appreciation camps for women of all ages. “No other film industry in the world responded to the pandemic the way Malayalam cinema did thematically, weaving its motifs in the narratives and in shooting within the restrictions,” writes Namrata Joshi in the book’s Foreword. In fact, even back in 2019, it had produced a medical-thriller film based on Kerala’s fightback against the Nipah virus, she adds. Over the past decade, and especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, mainstream Malayalam cinema began attracting the attention of the general public from other Indian states. 

In 2024, Malayalam cinema had several critical and commercial successes, and gained a whole new audience from the north, discovering its hidden gems. 2025 proved to be a huge year with several hundred crores earned at the box office. Interestingly, the industry’s highest grosser ever is a female-led superhero film, Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra. 

Praveen highlights other little known aspects of the industry, such as the fact that the #MeToo movement in the Malayalam film industry began before the first allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced. In 2017, the Women in Cinema Collective was formed in protest against the apathy of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes. 

Praveen also dedicates a chapter to the evolution of new-age music in Malayalam films. In 2003, a band called Avial rose in the state’s independent music scene. “Rendered in the mother tongue with a lush landscape and folk-tinted lyrics, it immediately evoked the smell of Kerala’s soil and monsoons — and a connection to Kerala’s culture while remaining contemporary,” he writes. In 2009, the band composed the soundtrack of a short film, Bridge, as part of the anthology film  Kerala Café. This opened the entry of independent music into mainstream Malayalam films  —“from slow jazz to rock, trance, hip-hop and electronica”.

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The reviewer is a New Delhi-based freelance writer