Nina Paley’s Sita Sings The Blues won the 7th Annual Indian Film Festival Of Los Angeles (IFFLA) grand jury prize for best narrative feature and Rajesh Jala’s Children Of The Pyre took corresponding documentary honours.

Dipti Gogna’s Narmeen won the grand jury prize for best short. Audience Choice Awards went to Sooni Taraporevala’s Little Zizou for narrative, Faiza Ahmad Khan’s Supermen Of Malegaon for documentary and Gregg Helvey’s Kavi for the short film category.

“This film festival has been a pivotal one in celebrating the impressive diversity of film-making styles and vision from both well known Indian film-makers and new cinematic voices emerging in the Indian film-making community,” festival director Christina Marouda said.

“IFFLA also took another important step in establishing itself as a key annual event for the Hollywood and Indian entertainment business community to come together and collaborate.”  

Highlights included a salute to Bollywood legend Anil Kapoor and the presentation of the 2009 IFFLA Industry Leadership Award to Warner Bros International executive vice-president Richard Fox and Reliance BIG Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna.

Overall 21 features and 16 shorts screened at the festival, which ran from April 21-26.

Topics