Festivals: IFFLA
Indian Film Fest LA 2018 Announces Full Feature Lineup and Tribute to Actress Tabu
The 17th annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles is nearly upon us and the feature and short film lineups have been announced. Opening on April 11th with a special screening of Sriram Raghavan's stellar Andhadhun and tribute to leading...
Indian Film Fest LA 2018 Review: IN THE SHADOWS, There Be Men And Monsters
Delhi's dark alleyways get their closeup in filmmaker Dipesh Jain's Gali Guliyaan (In the Shadows), a psychological thriller about paranoia, isolation, and the long lasting effects of trauma. Khuddoos (Manoj Bajpayee) is a loner, a man who lives vicariously through...
Indian Film Fest LA 2018 Review: MERCURY, Karthik Subbaraj's Silent Thriller Turns Up The Heat
Mercury, the latest film from Tamil wunderkind director, Karthik Subbaraj, is a bold experiment in alternative storytelling. This film, touted as a “silent thriller” though really more of a ‘dialogue-free’ one, is the most high profile project of its kind...
Indian Film Fest LA 2018 Review: TAKE OFF Is A Remarkable Testament The The Potential Of Indian Mainstream Cinema
In 2014, 46 Indian nurses were rescued from an ISIS controlled region of Iraq. Director Mahesh Narayan's 2017 feature, Take Off, is based on their story, and it became one of the biggest commerical and critical successes of last year...
Indian Film Fest LA 2017 Review: THE CINEMA TRAVELLERS, Captures a Moment of Transition and Rebirth
Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya's The Cinema Travellers is a love letter to an age quickly coming to a close in India and around the world. Once upon a time in India, the only way that the small remote villages...
Indian Film Fest LA 2017 Review: TRAPPED, Loneliness Abounds in the Midst of Millions
Vikram Motwane's Trapped is the story of a man who becomes locked in his flat hundreds of feet above the bustling metropolis of Mumbai with no one to save him or even miss him. When the story first became apparent...
Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles Announces its 2017 Lineup: HOTEL SALVATION, A DEATH IN THE GUNJ, SEXY DURGA, and More
The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles announced its lineup for the 2017 edition this morning and its as solid as ever. The festival brings together a few festival favorites, several American and North American premieres, and some great looking...
Indian Film Fest LA 2016 Review: ALIGARH, A Human Tragedy
In April of 2010, Professor S.R. Siras died alone in a rented room. He'd been sacked from his job as the head of the department of regional languages in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. He'd been a professor of Marathi at...
Indian Film Fest LA 2016 Review: KIRUMI, When Ambition Bites Back
Director Anucharan's debut feature, Kirumi, is the kind of calling card that every filmmaker dreams of. This thrilling drama boasts well drawn characters, enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing, a visual style that is confident without feeling...
Indian Film Fest LA 2016 Review: FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN Profiles Fans Of India's Greatest Superstar
There are movie stars and then there are MOVIE STARS, and on some level beyond the latter, there exists Superstar Rajinikanth. For nearly forty years, this former bus conducter has inspired almost religious devotion from his fans both inside and...
Indian Film Fest LA 2016 Review: ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES, India's Women Are Docile No More
India, like every other film industry in the world, suffers from a significant shortage of films featuring women in leading roles. I'm not talking about women's films, chick flicks, or other films that celebrate women by exaggerating feminity to conform...
Indian Film Fest LA 2016 Review: OTTAAL, A Boy Trapped In The Cage Of Destiny
Jayaraj's Malayalam language feature Ottaal (The Trap) begins with a boy writing a Christmas letter to his grandfather. Kuttappayi, the boy in question, writes this letter in the dark, obviously past his own bedtime and in secret. His miserable...
Indian Film Fest LA 2015 Review: HARAAMKHOR, The Dangerous Distance Between Loving And Being Loved
Does love make monsters of men? Or, as Shlok Sharma's debut feature Haraamkhor suggests, does the idea of love merely magnify the monstrous tendencies latent within men? This is one of many complex ideas that weave through Sharma's film, but it...
Indian Film Fest LA: SIDDHARTH, SOLD, UGLY, And QISSA Topline
In a mere three weeks time, the 12th annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) opens its doors to show off some of the fantastic things going on in the independent film scene of the world's largest democracy and...
LA's Indian Film Fest Announces Child Trafficking Drama SOLD As Opener
A film fest quickly gaining attention in fest-packed Los Angeles is the Indian Film Fest of LA. With last year's high profile screenings of Gangs of Wasseypur, Midnight Children, and Eega, IFFLA positioned itself as the best way to catch...
IFFLA 2013 Review: SHIP OF THESEUS [De]Constructs Identity Biologically
The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus' paradox, is a paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by...
IFFLA 2013 Preview: India In The Spotlight Again!
The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles is nearly upon us with an April 9th opening looming, so we thought we'd give you a little preview of the awesome films coming to the City of Angels. Unfortunately, I won't be...
