The 1960s and 1970s marked a golden period for Malayalam cinema, catalyzed largely by the film society movement. Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan and his associate Kulathoor Bhaskaran Nair launched the first film society in Kerala in 1965, and the movement spread rapidly. Within a few decades, Kerala boasted over 60 film societies, some even in villages, making it the largest film society movement in the country. These societies exposed Keralites to world cinema and nurtured a generation of filmmakers with a sophisticated cinematic sensibility.
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Yet even in those early days, Malayalam cinema pivoted in a starkly different direction from the rest of India. While mythological films were the mainstay in other industries, Malayalam cinema—aside from a handful of mythological films—produced relatable family dramas and socially realistic films in large numbers right from the early 1950s. This distinctive approach was not accidental. It was shaped by Kerala’s unique social and political trajectory—a state that underwent drastic transformations through years of struggle against caste discrimination, untouchability, and feudal oppression.