IFFLA announces two panel discussions as part of the festival line-up

The 19th edition of the annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) has announced two panel discussions to be held during this year's virtual festival which starts today and will end on 27 May.

The discussions will feature South Asians in the film industry who are increasing representation and inclusivity through their work. 

The first panel discussion, titled ‘Changemakers and Gatekeepers: South Asian Executives Developing Diverse Content’, will feature South Asian development executives from various production companies who have made it their mission to develop traditionally underrepresented talent, including South Asian directors, writers, showrunners and producers.

The panellists will provide a window into what excites development executives when considering new projects and how they work with creators to develop their projects.

They will also discuss examples of content that challenges traditional assumptions of what can reach a wide audience.

This panel will feature filmmaker Tanuj Chopra as the moderator with Amit Dey, senior vice-president and head of non-fiction at MRC Entertainment, Nikki Menon, director of development at Ladies’ Car Productions, and Sara Rastogi, senior vice-president of development at HOORAE Film & TV, as the participants.

The second panel, ‘Beyond Binaries: Creating Space for Gender-Inclusive South Asian Stories’, will comprise South Asian transgender and non-binary creators and artistes and highlight their work and activism towards gender inclusivity in storytelling.

This panel will be followed by a special screening of the award-winning film Fireflies, which highlights the journey of a trans woman in Assam.

The discussion will be moderated by Priya Arora, who hosts the Queering Desi podcast and is social media editor at The New York Times newspaper. The participants will be Milin Dutta, producer and executive director of Fireflies, D'Lo, actor (Looking, Transparent, Sense 8), writer and comic, and Aneesh Sheth, actress/activist (Bombay Dreams, Jessica Jones, High Maintenance).

Both panels will go live on 21 May at 7:30pm PST and simultaneously in India on Saturday 22 May at 8am IST. The festival had earlier unveiled its line-up of films that will be accessible to an Indian audience as well for the first time.