IFFLA ’09: The show begins!
It’s a beautiful day in California and after a furious 5hrs drive from SFO, I am finally here – at Arclights Cinema, the venue for the 7th edition of Indian Film Festival of Los Angles (IFFLA). It’s quiet out here, the people are still gathering. A few familiar faces of volunteers here and there, some with a hint of recognition, some with indifference but the energy – ever evident.
This is my third trip to this festival that over the years I have come to love. The reasons why I make this trip forgoing vacations and utilizing much precious PTO’s are varied – from meeting PFC brethren to watching quality films. But more importantly, the driving reason is a sense of pride to watch something after the same vein of PFC, a small movement aimed at bringing quality films to the Indian diaspora, films that get lost in the glitz of big star block-busters to films that are suppressed citing pre-historic ethical double standards.
Moving away from ill feelings and prejudices, I am excited to be here. I will try to make this year the longest in terms of the count of number of movies that I will try to catch. I have booked myself for 11 films this year and I hope to watch all of them and cover most of them here in this IFFLA ’09 diary.
The following is the fare that I plan to catch at this year’s festival:
04/22 – Shorts 1, Air India 182
04/23 – Shorts 2, Little Zizou
04/24 – Indian Ocean documentary, Quick Gun Murugan
04/25 – Kanchivaram, Sita Sings the blues, Siddharth the Prisoner, The surperman of Malegoan
04/26 – 7 days in Slow motion, The Kiran Bedi documentary.
Its funny how time flies! When I first came here in 2006, I had not met a single PFC author whom I used to be connected with on a daily basis for more than a year, first through personal blogs, then through the origin of PFC. Now when I am sitting in the place typing this on what has become the “adda” of PFC wallah’s at the venue, not having anyone around is getting a little weird. Oz just msg’d that he may not be able to make it to today’s screenings which means I am out here alone. Anyone in the vicinity of LA reading this – please make your way to Arclights!
All in all, the show is about to begin, the will call is buzzing with activity and even though there is a palpable excitement, the pitch is kind of on the lower side. Hopefully as and when PFC authors reach here in strength in less than 24hrs, I am sure we are on the path to another successful and memorable festival.
From a dingy cafe on Sunset with tons of coffee – Vive IFFLA!
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I feel stupid to miss this one! Btw, keep chipping away. I have infinite expectations from Quick Gun Murugan! Then there is the Indian Ocean’s docu. too!
I will be there for Gabricha Paus…tomorrow…Hope 2 meet some of the PFC authors…keep rocking!
Ravptor, your schedule is fairly close to mine.
Ravptorrrrrrrrrrrrrr.. I am jealous that you get to watch the Kanishka docu..i sooo..wanted to watch it..and not to mention Gabricha Paus!!!
Will see you tomm around this time man..lets rock…one more time!!
Damnnnn….I’m missing this time also…I’m sure I’ll make it next time as I won’t be a student then..
@ravptor, please do write about Quick Gun Murugan and Indian Ocean docu.
Wow. After reading about how far people are traveling to attend IFFLA, I’m a bit ashamed that I’m missing most of it despite living in LA. I will try to make it there for some of it. I definitely want to see The Damned Rain, Little Zizou, Kanchivaram, Bombay Summer and at least one of the shorts programs on any of the days.
Oh, and I’m down to meet up with any PFC folks who will be attending. I always wonder what y’all are like…
Shruthi & others in LA – buzz when you get to arclights. we are here.
@ Vick – will do.
Anand: mail at ravptor@gmail.com to identify you.
Ok, in my typical shortsightedness, I thought, “Hey, it’s an ethnic film festival; only a few hardcore fans will show up.” I fought terrible traffic and parking situations and arrived at the Archlight to find that Little Zizou was completely sold out. In fact, the only seats available in the remaining films are the ones in the very front, back and sides that nobody wants — and even they will be sold out by tomorrow.
While I’m very happy that IFFLA has drawn such a tremendous crowd, I’m totally bummed that I can’t see anything this year. Yeah, yeah, it’s my own fault, I know.
The only bright spot of the night was spotting Anil Kapoor. His hair is taller than he is. I love it.
Have fun, ravptor. Perhaps I’ll see you and your crew next year.
Shruti, most of the sold-out shows had seats anyway. Some ticket holders must not have shown up, so there probably was a way to take an unfilled seat, even at Little Zizou. Also, Thursday night, there were 13 traffic accidents on the LA highways. It took me 1.5 hours to get around them on my way in from the airport.