Valletta breakwater and Dingli Cliffs serve as the backdrop of an upcoming Kollywood film called Khadalikkum Neram Idhu, or Time to Love.

Actors and crew members came to Malta to shoot the opening scenes of the January Kollywood release, the Tamil language Indian movie genre coming from Chennai.

Indian films generally start with a dance sequence in a picturesque place and this is where Malta comes into the picture, literally.

Production manager Danish Kapir said he chose Malta because, while other productions in South India were using Italy and France for their postcard intros, very few had featured Malta. “We thought we’d promote Malta through this entertainment,” Mr Kapir said, adding he planned to bring more films Malta’s way in the future.

The film – a love story – has a medium budget of €400,000 and Karthik and Priyadharshinias, the films “hero” and “heroine”, as the protagonists are known, are not yet very popular.

Khadalikkum Neram Idhu will be premiered in January and will be a Tamil language release.

Local production manager Paul Parker said that while the production was not major, something big was in the pipeline involving “local actors for a month-and-a-half for an international release”.