The 11th Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles was held April 9th – 14th at Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood. Festival creator Christina Marouda and director Anurag Kashyap opened the event with Kashyap’s Gangs Of Wasseypur, now one of my all-time favorite films. Check out that review. Midnight’s Children from acclaimed director Deepa Mehta and writer Salman Rushdie closed the fest and a slew of great work debuted in between, culminating in tonight’s awards.
Miss Lovely by director Ashim Ahluwalia, a tale of two brothers’ divergent paths through the sleaze of 80’s Bollywood took the Jury Award for Best Feature. Filmistaan by Nittin Kakar, a heartwarming sort of film-within-a-film was the audience’s choice for Best Feature. Unravel by Meghna Gupta won the Jury and Audience award for Best Short Film.
Both the audience and jury also agreed that Beyond All Boundaries, about three cricket lovers from impoverished backgrounds: a fan, a prodigy, and a girl who wants to one day play cricket professionally was the Best Documentary. Honorable mentions were given for the feature Ship of Theseus from director Anand Gandhi and the Short film And After That by Vadusev Keluskar. The 6th annual Industry Leadership Awards went to V.P. of Universal television Bela Bajaria and producer Guneet Monga.
For more information on where to see these films or to learn more about next year, visit IFFA.