The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) is an annual film festival held in Los Angeles, California. Established by Christina Marouda in 2003, as a nonprofit organization devoted to paving the way for a greater appreciation of Indian cinema and diverse culture by providing the public with a selection of films from and about the Indian diaspora by Indian and international filmmakers. It features, documentaries and shorts and presents Grand Jury and Audience Choice awards in the following categories: Best Feature, Best Documentary, and Best Short. The IFFLA's Cinematic Scoring Achievement Award is given to composers, honoring film scores. In 2022, the festival is completing 20 years of existence.

Founding

Marouda, a film lover of Greek descent established the festival to garner greater appreciation amongst Western audiences to all forms of Cinema in India. Growing up in Crete, she watched several Indian films, growing up with the films of Satyajit Ray and Nargis, and watched several mainstream Bollywood films, Bengali films and Tamil films during a trip to India in 1999. Whilst enjoying the "ride from laughter to crying" that Hindi films can take audiences on, the festival was not looking to promote Bollywood cinema as much for there were already outlets for this. Marouda has expressed her admiration for director Mani Ratnam, Rajiv Menon's Kandukondain Kandukondain and The Apu Trilogy.

Individual festivals

2003

The first IFFLA was held in 2003. Audience Award for Best Picture - Kannathil Muthamittal (Mani Ratnam)

2004

2005

2006

2007

April 17–22, 2007 at ArcLight Hollywood. The festival was attended by Quentin Tarantino. Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature: VALLEY OF FLOWERS (Pan Nalin) Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary: Q2P (Paromita Vohra) Grand Jury Prize for Best Short: TEA BREAK (Srinivas Sunderrajan) Audience Award for Best Feature: Outsourced Directed by John Jeffcoat Audience Award for Best Documentary: DIVIDED WE FALL directed by Sharat Raju Audience Award for Best Short: MONSOON directed by Shyam Balsé

2008

22–27 April 2008 at ArcLight Hollywood.

2009

April 21–27, 2009. Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature: Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

Audience Award for Best Picture - Take Off (Mahesh Narayanan)

2019

April 11–14, 2019 at Regal L.A. Opening Night Gala: Andhadhun Centerpiece Gala: Closing Gala: The Odds

Awards

Source: Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature: Wisdom of Silence The audience awards: Vivek/Reason