The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Raj TV to celebrate 75 years of Tamil cinema

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 03, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Raj TV to celebrate 75 years of Tamil cinema

Staff Reporter

The channel is planning to show 75 movies from various eras

CHENNAI: Raj TV is preparing a royal salute for the Tamil film industry in its 75th year of running.

Raj TV directors M. Regunathan and M. Ravindran told a press conference here on Saturday that the channel was planning elaborate celebrations for "Tamil Cinema 75," including a film festival on their channel showing 75 movies from various eras and a grand event on June 24 to honour 75 veterans of the industry.

The first Tamil talkie "Kalidas" produced by H.M. Reddy was released on November 1, 1931. Raj TV directors said they had been planning since November last to celebrate the 75th year of Tamil cinema. They have roped in film producer Chitra Lakshmanan to coordinate the event.

The channel has been airing teasers about the film festival over the past few days. The film festival will go on air from April 5 to June 19. The channel representatives said only landmark movies would be screened in the festival along with short interviews of the crew. The movies will also be edited to ensure that the viewer who watch them from 9 p.m. onwards have a better chance of staying awake till the end credits rolls. "Some of the movies are really long and we thought it is better that we edit them to cut down the running time," the channel directors said. Raj TV is planning to screen movies at the Marina and Besant Nagar beaches to get the city in mood for the grand event planned on June 24. "We are hoping to screen movies on beaches for at least two weeks before the event. This will include some rare and old movies."

The channel has a library of over 2,000 Tamil movies. Raj TV also holds video distribution rights to some of the golden oldies of Tamil cinema.

In recent past, Raj TV has organised events to felicitate doyens of cinema. They organised an event in April 2005 to felicitate director K. Balachander and another event in August 2005 to felicitate lyricist Valee.

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