Hansal Mehta's ‘Aligarh’ is all set to be screened at the 14th edition of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA), which will open with Pan Nalin's ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’. Anu Menon's ‘Waiting’, starring Bollywood stars, Naseeruddin Shah and Kalki Koechlin, is the closing film of the festival, which will be held at ArcLight, Hollywood in Los Angeles, California from April 6-10.
A total line-up of 27 films (16 features and 11 shorts) will be screened, this year. Three films will have their world premiere at the five-day film festival namely, ‘CRD’ by Kranti Kanade, ‘Babu's Dilemma’ by Collin D'Cunha, and Anurag Kashyap produced ‘Mochi’ (The Cobbler) directed by Saqib Pandor. There will also be two North American premieres, and ten US premieres.
Several features and shorts from female film-makers will be presented this year by IFFLA including Deepa Mehta's gangster drama ‘Beeba Boys’, Leena Yadav's ‘Parched’, Ruchika Oberoi's ‘Island City’ and Rinku Kalsy's ‘For the Love of a Man’. In the shorts program, Payal Sethi's ‘Leeches’, Megha Ramaswamy's ‘Bunny’, Pritha Chakraborthy's ‘Ashrut’ (Silent Voices) and Sonejuhi Sinha's ‘Love Comes Later’ will be screened.
The festival will feature two LGBT titles, Mehta's politically-charged ‘Aligarh’ and the short ‘Daaravtha’ (The Threshold) by Nishant Roy Bombarde. "India's independent film-makers are taking bold risks, defying convention, and responding to injustice in each of these visionary films, and the results are breathtaking," Christina Marouda, Founder of IFFLA said. A host of celebrities will attend the festival including Mehta, Yadav and Kalki.