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The 2026 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) has announced the film and events lineup for its highly anticipated 24th edition. IFFLA is set to take place between April 23 and 26. Recognized worldwide as a leading platform for South Asian cinema in the US., IFFLA, shines a spotlight on new voices and helps film artistes take vital next steps in their careers by connecting them with key industry professionals.
IFFLA 2026 opens with Mahesh Narayanan’s Malayalam thriller Patriot, one of the most anticipated Indian films of 2026, bringing together the towering legends Mohanlal and Mammootty, on screen again after 18 years, in a star-studded ensemble also featuring Fahadh Faasil, Nayanthara and Revathy. The festival will close with Anusha Rizvi’s The Great Shamsuddin Family, a razor-sharp social satire set in Delhi and her long-awaited follow-up to Peepli Live. Passes and tickets went on sale on March 19 at www.indianfilmfestival.org.
This year IFFLA will feature 27 films, including seven narrative features, two documentary features, and 18 short films. Countries represented include India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, France, the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the USA.
Anu Rangachar, IFFLA’s Artistic Director, said, “Apart from our impressive galas, the program travels across South Asia, from Bangladesh’s meditative Sand City to Pakistan’s emerging new wave with the haunting Ghost School and the visually arresting Lali. Alongside Indian stories like Shape of Momo and Venice-winner Songs of Forgotten Trees, this year’s lineup reflects a remarkable surge of women filmmakers across the subcontinent and the diasporas, something we are very proud to champion. Two intimate diaspora documentaries, Karla Murthy’s The Gas Station Attendant, and Ben Rekhi’s and Swetlana’s Breaking the Code, round out the selection with deeply personal tributes to their fathers.”
The film festival’s highly impactful IFFLA Industry Days returns bigger and better than ever before—including panels, masterclasses, screenings, and pitch finalists, with details to be announced in the coming weeks. This is a forum offering South Asian film and TV creatives opportunities to build meaningful connections with industry leaders and the chance to win a $10,000 Pitch Competition Development Grant. The forum also offers IFFLA Connect, a unique program that links standout projects from South Asia and its diasporas to key industry professionals, offering support across financing, production, casting, and beyond.
Anjay Nagpal, IFFLA’s Executive Director, said, “Each year, IFFLA puts the spotlight on the brilliant breadth and scope of South Asian storytelling. We look forward to bringing another exciting group of filmmakers together with the Los Angeles audiences and industry vets eager to see their new work. This curated connection is what makes IFFLA such a vital and unmissable event.”
IFFLA kicks off with the U.S. Premiere of Mahesh Narayanan’s Patriot. With combats and chases, secret missions and covert operatives, death threats and assassination attempts, the film is an-edge-of-the-seat espionage thriller. Packed with a high voltage, star-spangled ensemble, it is led by the two icons of Malayalam cinema—Mohanlal and Mammootty—who come together on screen again after 18 years.
Closing the film festival is the North American Premiere of Anusha Rizvi’s social satire, The Great Shamsuddin Family(South Asian Herald rated it 4 stars of 5). Set over the course of a single day inside a Delhi apartment, the film centers around Bani, a writer racing to meet a crucial deadline while managing her family’s escalating turmoil. Rizvi brilliantly turns domestic chaos into a microcosm of modern India, balancing humor and heartbreak while crafting a tapestry of generational tension, urban neurosis and female resilience.
Mahde Hasan’s debut Sand City is set in the unforgiving metropolis of Dhaka, where a young woman from the indigenous minority and an ambitious factory worker, two strangers harboring repressed desires and fantasies, find themselves connected by the city’s endless and shifting sand. The film won the Proxima Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Tribeny Rai’s Shape of Momo, which has been making waves around the world, will have its North American premiere at IFFLA. The film tells the story of a young woman who, after quitting her job in Delhi, returns to her ancestral home in a remote Himalayan village, where she must negotiate the traditional expectations that have long defined the women around her.
Yet another impressive debut is Anuparna Roy’s Songs of Forgotten Trees, which follows two young migrant women who develop an unlikely bond as they strive to survive Mumbai’s urban sprawl. The film garnered Roy the Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival.
Karla Murthy’s documentary The Gas Station Attendant is an intimate portrait of an immigrant father’s journey from the streets of India to the realities of life in America, woven from archival footage and recorded phone conversations between the filmmaker and her father while he worked the nightshift as a gas station attendant. The film won Best Documentary at the Nashville Film Festival, and a Special Mention at Sheffield DocFest.
Making its world premiere during a special presentation screening, Ben Rekhi and Swetlana’s documentary Breaking The Code is a deeply personal story where Rekhi retraces his father’s path from a modest childhood in newly- independent India to his rise as a tech pioneer in Silicon Valley — a powerful story of migration, sacrifice and love that broke the glass ceiling for Indians in America.
The dynamic short film program, which this year features work by 13 female directors, includes the world premiere of Nihaarika Negi’s sweeping Tenfa, produced by Storiculture that previously also produced the acclaimed Humans in the Loop (IFFLA 2025). Working closely with the local Kinnauri community, this intergenerational tale follows an unlikely trio of women as they cross a remote Himalayan landscape in search of an endangered herb that could save a mother’s life, guided by a forgotten folk song.
Making its North American premiere, Hidden Sun, by Girls Will Be Girls (IFFLA 2024) director Shuchi Talati, is an stirring drama about a discontent couple whose desire for each other is reawakened when they cross paths with a flamenco dancer.
Shorts having their Los Angeles premieres at IFFLA after gaining recognition at major international film festivals include the Queer Palm award-winner at Cannes Critics’ Week Bleat!, by Ananth Subramaniam, a surreal comedy about a Malaysian-Tamil couple whose male goat turns out to be pregnant; the Cannes Special Mention winner Ali, by Adnan Al Rajeev, a haunting Bangladeshi film about a young singer who must hide his true voice for a chance to move to the city; and straight from its premiere at Sundance, O’Sey Balamma by Raman Nimmala, a soulful story about the unexpected bond between a matriarch and her housekeeper as they confront solitude.
The festival has a robust selection of films by California and local filmmakers, including the world premieres of Harvest Party At Camp Two by Rajan Gill and Reaa Pur, a compelling documentary about Punjabi farmworkers in 1980s small-town America; Peanut by Sheila Sawhny, a heartfelt tale about second chances; Urvashi Pathania’ Skin, a surreal horror tale about a young woman trapped in the treacherous machinery of toxic beauty standards; Unfriend(Katti) by Kanishka Aggarwal, about an eight-year-old girl grappling with the first sting of gender bias and sibling rivalry; and the North American premiere of Radha Mehta’s Sūnna, a tender mother-daughter story set in the world of classical Indian music.
IFFLA 2026 is supported in part by the Joy of Sharing Foundation, Tarsadia Foundation, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and additional sponsors.
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