The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) is an annual film festival held in Los Angeles, California. Established by Christina Marouda in 2003, as a nonprofit organization devoted to paving the way for a greater appreciation of Indian cinema and diverse culture by providing the public with a selection of films from and about the Indian diaspora by Indian and international filmmakers.
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It features features, documentaries and shorts and presents Grand Jury and Audience Choice awards in the following categories: Best Feature, Best Documentary, and Best Short. The IFFLA's Cinematic Scoring Achievement Award is given to composers, honouring film scores.
Founding
Marouda, a film lover of Greek descent established the festival to garner greater appreciation amongst Western audiences to all forms of Cinema in India. Growing up in Crete, she watched several Indian films, growing up with the films of Satyajit Ray and Nargis, and watched several mainstream Bollywood films, Bengali films and Tamil films during a trip to India in 1999. Whilst enjoying the "ride from laughter to crying" that Hindi films can take audiences on, the festival was not looking to promote Bollywood cinema as much for there were already outlets for this. Marouda has expressed her admiration for director Mani Ratnam, Rajiv Menon's Kandukondain Kandukondain and The Apu Trilogy.
2003
The first IFFLA was held in 2003.
Audience Award for Best Picture - Kannathil Muthamittal (Mani Ratnam)
2006
2007
April 17–22, 2007 at ArcLight Hollywood. The festival was attended by Quentin Tarantino.
Opening Night film : Provoked ( Jag Mundhra)Closing Night film : Vanaja (film) (Rajnesh Domalpalli).Tribute Honorée : Deepti Naval.Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature: VALLEY OF FLOWERS (Pan Nalin)
Special Mention, VANAJA directed by Rajnesh DomalpalliGrand Jury Prize for Best Documentary: Q2P (Paromita Vohra)
Grand Jury Prize for Best Short: TEA BREAK (Srinivas Sunderrajan)
Special Mention, PRINTED RAINBOW directed by Gitanjali RaoAudience Award for Best Feature: Outsourced Directed by John Jeffcoat
Audience Award for Best Documentary: DIVIDED WE FALL directed by Sharat Raju
Audience Award for Best Short: MONSOON directed by Shyam Balsé
2008
22–27 April 2008 at ArcLight Hollywood.
Tribute honoree: Madhuri Dixit.Opening gala: Amal (Richie Mehta)Closing gala: Mumbai Cutting...A City Unfolds2009
April 21–27, 2009.
Opening Night Gala: The Fakir of Venice (Anand Surapur)Centerpiece Gala: Heaven on Earth (Deepa Mehta)Closing Gala: Yes Madam, Sir (docu, Megan Doneman)Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature: Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)