Indian Film Festival of LA, 2013

The 11th Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) kicked off on April 9th 2013. Anurag Kashyap’s film "Gangs of Wasseypur" opened the film, and the festival will be closed on April 14th with Deepa Mehta’s "Midnight Children" which stars actress Shriya Saran.

The IFFLA is a nonprofit organisation devoted to a greater appreciation of Indian cinema and culture by showcasing films, honour entertainment industry business executies and promoting the diverse perspectives of the Indian diaspora.

The six-day festival is the premiere platform for the latest in cutting edge global Indian cinema and bridges the gap between the two largest entertainment industries in the world – Hollywood and India. The festival will showcase more than 35 films from the Indian filmmaking community across the globe, host the highly anticipated opening and closing red carpet galas, and the closing awards ceremony.

Films that are being screened during the course of the festival include Mira Nair’s "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", documentary "Celluloid Man" about legendary Indian archivist PK Nair, and docu-film "SALMA" about a South Indian women’s courageous journey in the face of oppression. Directed by British documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto, SALMA tells the story of a young Tamil woman who was kept locked in a room by her family and tricked into marriage. She secretly wrote poetry within the confines of her prison, and against all odds her work eventually found its way into the hands of a publisher! Check out the trailer below:

Other films that will be screened include "Enakkum Oru Per (I Too Have A Name)", Telugu film "Eega" and "Dosa Hunt". A film about popular Sikh hip-hop artist Humble the Poet is also on the schedule, and one that particularly caught our eye was the documentary "Rags To Pads", which looks at how a villager from Tamil Nadu created jobs for millions of rural women after being appalled by his wife’s lack of menstrual hygeine. Watch the trailer below: