Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show, Faraz Ali’s Shoebox, Natesh Hegde’s Pedro head to LA

The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) has announced the line-up of films for its 20th edition this year which will mark a return to in-person screenings and events.

IFFLA will showcase as many as 26 films (10 features and 16 shorts) from 28 April to 1 May and will include a gala presentation of Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show, the world premiere of Anmol Sidhu’s Jaggi and the North American premieres of Faraz Ali’s Shoebox and Natesh Hegde’s Pedro.

Jaggi, Shoebox and Pedro are directorial debuts that will be showcased at the festival. Anmol Sidhu’s Jaggi follows a schoolboy in rural Punjab who faces toxic masculinity and sexual abuse when he is assumed to be gay.

Faraz Ali’s Shoebox tells a coming-of-age story which centres on a young woman who watches her father struggle to keep the family’s single-screen movie theatre running even as everything changes around them.

Natesh Hegde’s Pedro focuses on a taciturn electrician who becomes a social outcast in his small Karnataka town after becoming involved in a drunken incident.

Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show is the filmmaker’s celebration of the love of cinema through the story of a boy who stumbles upon a rundown movie theatre and charms his way into a daily seat in the projection room. However, when the theatre is upgraded from film to digital, the boy's wondrous world may be lost unless he and his friends can create their own “theatre”. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and has traveled to festivals across the world.

A second gala presentation will be announced at a later date.

IFFLA executive director Christina Marouda said, “Reflecting on IFFLA’s 20 years, we find ourselves overjoyed by the range of incredible talent we have discovered and celebrated, introducing numerous emerging and established voices to Los Angeles. We are also incredibly proud of the sense of family and community we have accomplished over the last 20 years.

"We are now ramping up our efforts to support the careers of filmmakers by adding to the programmes IFFLA has become known for over the past two decades, not just as a touchstone for our filmmakers, but also as a bridge to their next films.”

Some of the other films in the line-up are Irfana Majumdar’s Shankar’s Fairies, a delicate tapestry of a tale set in 1960s Lucknow about the touching bond that develops between the daughter of a police chief and the family’s head servant through his fantastical stories; Aditya Sengupta’s Bengali drama Once Upon A Time In Calcutta, which follows an ageing actress in games of power with five different men through the dark secrets of a disintegrating city; and Nithin Lukose’s critically acclaimed directorial debut Paka (River of Blood), produced by Anurag Kashyap, a revenge thriller that pits two rival families against each other over a Romeo-and-Juliet-type forbidden romance.

Ritwik Pareek’s religious satire Dug Dug and Rahul Jain’s documentary Invisible Demons, which was premiered at Cannes in the Cinema for the Climate section, are also part of the line-up.

The 20th edition of the festival will also include a Spotlight on South Asia section, a special programme on short films, and the announcement of a filmmaker mentorship initiative to support emerging South Asian filmmakers.