Monsoon Shootout to open London Indian Film Festival

Closing the festival will be the UK premiere of Bombay Talkies, which comprises four stories by directors Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap. The film explores 100 years of Indian cinema and features independent and Bollywood stars.

Other UK premieres at LIFF include Pune 25, BA Pass, Oonga, Mapa, Life is Good and The Bright Day, Shahid, Tasher Desh (The Land of Cards) and Josh (Against the Grain).

Gyan Correa’s The Good Road will receive its international premiere and Pawan Kumar’s Lucia – Kannada cinema’s first crowd-funded film - will have its world premiere at LIFF.

For the first time, the festival will go on tour to Bradford and Glasgow.

The centrepiece ‘In conversation’ event will take place at London’s BFI Southabnk on July 20 with actor Irrfan Khan talking to the award winning director of Senna, Asif Kapadia.

Khan’s film roles include BAFTA winner The Warrior and Oscar winners Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi. He has also featured in Hollywood films such as The Amazing Spider-Man, The Darjeeling Limited and The Namesake, and Bollywood hits Life In A Metro, Mumbai Meri Jaan, New York and Paan Singh Tomar.

As well as films in the Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi languages, and the festival’s first Pakistani film Josh, in Urdu, LIFF will feature a rare ‘Life in Pictures’ Masterclass from South Indian Director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, on July 19 at BFI Southbank.

The festival will also include industry events at BAFTA, exploring UK and Indian subcontinent co-productions.

The winner of the annual Satyajit Ray short film competition will be announced at the end of LIFF.

The festival benefitted from a grant from the BFI Film Festival Fund for the first time.

Festival director Cary Rajinder Sawhney said: “We are delighted that the festival is growing from strength to strength. If you want to find out more about South Asian cinema come and soak yourself in a week of magnificent films in London, or catch the festival tour in Bradford and Glasgow.”