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IFFLA 2008 Announces Call for Entries
The Sixth Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) seeks narrative, documentary, music videos, experimental, children’s and animated films of any length and format. IFFLA will run April 22-27, 2008 at ArcLight Hollywood, a state-of-the-art facility located in the heart of Los Angeles. Jury and Audience Choice Prizes will be awarded for Best Feature, Documentary and Short Film.
IFFLA 2007 had over 6,000 attendees and screened 36 films from 8 countries. In addition to the high-quality of presentation of their work, filmmakers in attendance gained access to an eclectic mix of professionals from the Los Angeles film industry.

Check out what our past filmmakers …

Srinivas, a young and passionate film maker from India was present at IFFLA-2007 in Los Angeles. His first short film ‘Tea break’ was screened at the film festival and later it won the best film award in Short film category. What a brilliant start for a beginner. Now he is one of the member of elite film-makers group at PFC. Good to have you here Srinivas.

I and Varun got a chance to talk to him about his start as a film-maker and his experiences while making of ‘Tea break’. Fortunately I had a camera with me and he agreed to give us a short interview. Varun, as an interviewer did a great job. I apologize for the delay in posting this interesting interview. Finally, here it is; thoughts and views of Srinivas, winner of Best short Film, at IFFLA-2007….

Christina Marouda, President of IFFLA is the brains behind the annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Having completed 5 years, IFFLA, as we saw it has been growing by leaps and bounds, bringing to the world priceless gems from the Indian cine scene.

IFFLA has become an upcoming junction for anything cinema, anything Indian. Distributors, producers, directors, Indian movie buff (most of them non-Indians), the business community. Yet, there is much more to come.

All this flurry of activity was quite intriguing and I had to have Christina come out from behind the curtains from where she is quite content in running the IFFLA team - over a hundred volunteers who drop everything in hand to make IFFLA happen each year, every year.

In her words “the flag is getting heavier and heavier with each passing year”… which it is… what with tragically not many from the Indian business community …

I must start this article with what Anurag said in behalf of the filmmakers before the screening. He said that the movie was made with “just” 38 Lacs. That they kept running out of money while making this film. Now why did they need 38 lakhs? When your protagonist is shooting everything on DV isn’t that the greatest excuse to shoot the movie in DV. Now I know that if you shoot Digital it costs a bomb to print it in film. But that is after you have shot the film. If your film is good like Lets Talk it will be picked up. And doesn’t a lot of Indian theaters gone Digital? What bothered me was that the essence of Missed Call was Digital. It was a personal film. I believe that some films must be shot on Digital & some on Films irrespective …

Best Feature

Jury Award: Valley Of Flowers

Audience Choice Award: Outsourced

Best Documentary

Jury Award: Q2P

Audience Choice Award: Divided We Fall - Americans in the Aftermath

Best Short Film

Jury Award: Tea Break

Audience Choice Award: Monsoon

Honorary Mentions

Vanaja (feature)

Printed Rainbow (Shorts)

From the above the talk of the town was on the award given to one movie - the jury award for “Valley of Flowers”… it seemed like the jury had gone bonkers.

In striker’s words VOF was pure visual masturbation. The top three contenders for the jury award in the best feature cateogory, for many in the festival were Vanaja, Kya Tum Ho? and Outsourced. A few were shocked on the final result, while others had their eyebrows pointing to the ceiling with the “have seen this happening a gazillion times before”.

No doubt VOF has captured Ladakh like never before in a feature. It was a mesmerizing experience. But sadly the movie wasn’t working for me. …

Chuck the lazy bones. Trash the “Oh, maybe a few years from now” thoughts. Screw the “impossible” misbeliefs. Pickup up your handicam and just shoot it. From 8 minutes to 20 minutes shorts.

An amazing 90 minutes that spanned about 6 shorts last night.

Loved “Shanu Taxi” - a story about a taxi driver who thinks up various business plans based around the cell phone forgotten by his ride. How can you squeeze such a beautiful story that has a start, middle and an end in 15 minutes? You’ve got to see this to believe it.

And what can I say about a mere 21 year old guy from Bombay who’s flown all the way here. Reason? His short film “Tea Break” was selected at IFFLA. Dead tired as I squeezed myself to watch this one. At the end of the 10 minutes, you feel rejuvenated. It’s Srinivas S’s first film, …

For those of you who attended the screening of Pan Nalin’s Valley Of Flowers, we apologize for the cancellation which took place due to an unforseen projector malfunction. Please note that the screening has been rescheduled now, in the same large theater #10 (no glitches this time!) as follows:

Saturday, April 21 - 3:30 p.m.

Please make sure you bring your ticket stub from last night. You do not have to buy a new ticket. They will let you in with the same one. Most of the attendees who caught a sneak peak at the opening were quite awed by the visuals. It is a terrific, visually mesmerizing effort by one of India’s most successful directors of crossover cinema. We look forward to having you all back there. Please help spread the word!

Saturday, April 21 - 3:30 p.m. …

Two days before the start of IFFLA, I received a call from Anurag that he was gonna show up at IFFLA and surprise everyone. Until that call, it had been confirmed that he wouldn’t be able to make it to the Indian Film Festival this year.

Yesterday t! and I drive to LAX and there he is. AND VOILA! Out of the blue Nishikant walks out of the doors behind him…

The only thing they wanted to do right after getting out of the airport is drive straight to Arclight Theater - where IFFLA is being organized.

But Anurag, it’s 2pm… no one’s gonna be there… the shows start around 7 in the evening

Nothing doing… Nishikant and Anurag arrive at the Arclights and just stand there for a few minutes, breathing in the air of the place, where things started working out so positively for them. Very emotionally attached to IFFLA, …

When Vijay asked PFC to present “Missed Call” at the Indian Film Festival, I thought yeah ok… shit… I’m in hot soup, if this movie really turns out to be… shit… what the fuck am I getting into… but it was Vijay, Kingfisher and a few PFC-ites in Southern California around, visiting their weekend shag zone (my house)… so the answer was “Yeah sure… it will be my pleasure”

Then a few days ago, Vijay asks me to review “Missed Call” before the event. This is one fucking shit spot I don’t like to be in. Review a movie that I’ll be presenting at IFFLA… why don’t they just call me to IFFLA, put me on stage and beat the shit out of me. This is trouble. What if the movie IS what I feel it may be. SHIT.

So the mail arrives. The screener DVD has to be viewed reviewed and …

In our tribute to Deepti Naval, the screening of Mirch Masala on Saturday, April 21 @ 8:00 pm has been REPLACED by the stunning Main Zinda Hoon directed by Sudhir Mishra. This is a rare film that is not available on DVD, VHS, or VCD, and NFDC has been kind enough to strike a brand new subtitled print for us, specially for the tribute. Don’t miss one of Sudhir Mishra’s finest films and Deepti Naval’s best performances as this may be your only chance to watch the film on 35mm in Los Angeles. Book your tickets now at http://www.arclightcinemas.com. For more information on the full program, please visit http://indianfilmfestival.org.

IFFLA Live Webcast & Filmmaker Interviews

IFFLA is going live on the web this year. For those unable to join us here in Los Angeles, you too can be a part of the festival by checking out …

In celebration of its fifth anniversary, IFFLA has added a day making it a 6-day long event that runs April 17-22, 2007 at ArcLight Hollywood, a state-of-the-art facility located in the heart of Hollywood.
Tickets are now on sale online at www.arclightcinemas.com or at the ArcLight Hollywood box office. For more information on how to attend the festival, please visit www.indianfilmfestival.org.
Check out this year’s Film Program and our new Bollywood By Night series, late night 21+ screenings of extravagant, exuberant and energetic Bollywood blockbusters. Chill out, have a drink and enter a world that’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced!
We are proud to introduce IFFLA EcoVision, a program that aims to spread ecological awareness by showcasing films on sustainability, utilizing eco-friendly products and processes, working with eco-conscious non-profit organizations and celebrating Earth Day on Sunday April 22.
If you …