‘Maharaja’ to ‘Kill’: Line-up for 2024 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles unveiled

The 2024 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) announced its lineup for the 22nd annual edition of the acclaimed film festival.

Taking to its official Instagram handle, IFFLA dropped a promo video along with the lineup announcement.

The festival will be held between June 27 and 30 at Landmark Theatres Sunset.

IFFLA will showcase twenty films, including seven narrative features, twelve shorts, and one docuseries with a diverse lineup of films from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, and the United States, bringing together South Asian stories and perspectives from around the globe.

The festival will open with the Los Angeles premiere of Tarsem Singh's forbidden romance Dear Jassi and close with Nithilan Saminathan's Tamil film Maharaja, a twisted revenge saga starring superstar Vijay Sethupathi and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap playing the villain.

The festival will also screen Kill, written and directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat and produced by Karan Johar and Guneet Monga, and the coming-of-age story Girls Will Be Girls, written and directed by Shuchi Talati.

The line-up also includes the award-winning filmmaker Christo Tomy's film Undercurrent, which explores the powerful themes of female solidarity; a tender love story Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts, written and directed by Shaun Seneviratne; and A House Named Shahana, a touching tale by Leesa Gazi and co-written by Aanon Siddiqui.

IFFLA will host a special screening of two episodes of the documentary series Defiance: Fighting the Far Right.

On June 28, the festival is also launching IFFLA Industry Day, a day-long forum for South Asian film and TV executives and creatives sharing their stories within this underrepresented community.

IFFLA's Artistic Director Anu Rangachar said, “The eclectic lineup covering most of the vast and diverse South Asian regions, including the diaspora, is directed by a majority of incredibly talented first-time filmmakers debuting with their works. The lineup organically reveals some of the themes such as solidarity and resilience, tender love, and familial violence, inherent to the South Asian communities around the globe.”

This year's shorts competition includes a diverse range of female-centric stories, featuring the work of 6 talented female directors. The lineup presents an impressive selection of stories with diaspora and coming-of-age themes, told in ten different languages. It boasts two world premieres, including Hema directed by Ritvik Dhavale and starring Rajshri Deshpande (Angry Indian Goddesses, Sacred Games), about an Indian woman's journey to rediscover her new purpose in life after moving to Los Angeles for her husband's job, and debut director Shashwat Dwivedi's comedic coming-of-age Bobby Beauty Parlour, directed by Shashwat Dwivedi and produced by Anurag Kashyap.