Richie Mehta's Amal will be the opening night gala on April 22 at the sixth annual Indian Film Festival Of Los Angeles (IFFLA), while the world premiere of Mumbai Cutting A City Unfolds will close the festival on April 27.

The festival, which takes place at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood, will also honour Madhuri Dixit with a tribute and screenings of her films The Death Sentence and My Heart Is Crazy.

Amal is Richie Mehta's feature directorial debut and is based on his short film which won the grand jury prize at IFFLA 2005. Adapted from the short story by Shaun Mehta, the film chronicles the results of a meeting between an auto rickshaw driver and an eccentric tycoon which results in the tycoon leaving the driver a vast fortune in his will. Rupinder Nagra, Koel Purie, Naseeruddin Shah, Roshan Seth and Seema Biswas star.

40 films will screen at the festival which closes with the tableau project Mumbai Cutting in which ten of India's top directors are given the opportunity to interpret Mumbai. All of the directors will attend the screening: they are Sudhir Mishra, Anurag, Kashyap, Rituparno Ghosh, Revathy, Kundan Shah, Jahnu Baruwa, Rahul Dholakia, Shashank Ghosh, Manish Jha and Ruchi Narain.

Madhuri Dixit is considered one of India's greatest actresses with credits including Tezaab, Sailaab, Khalnayak Beta, Anjaam, Raja and Hum Aapke Hai Koun.

The two films to be screened are The Death Sentence, which won the top prizes at Cinema Tout Ecran in Geneva and the Bangkok Film Festival, and My Heart Is Crazy which teamed her with superstar Shahrukh Khan.

For more information, visit www.indianfilmfestival.org.

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