Indian Film Festival of LA, India Center Foundation merge

By Arun Kumar

The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and The India Center Foundation have merged to pursue joint projects centered on the theme of visual storytelling in the South Asian community.

Already long-time collaborators, IFFLA and ICF will, among other things, work closely to incubate and launch an industry development program to showcase the next generation of South Asian talent to studios, funders and media executives, according to an IFFLA press release.

“We saw an opportunity to scale our work nationally as one of the leading supporters of emerging creative talent in the diaspora. By joining forces with IFFLA we can bring much-needed resources to support the stories that need to be told in the media. Our stories,” Priya Giri Desai, a co-founder of ICF, stated.

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Desai has joined the IFFLA Board of Directors as part of this merger, “in part to steward the funding that ICF will provide to the combined venture over several years.”

IFFLA said Desai will bring “her formidable talents in creating documentary and scripted South Asian content as well as an exceptional network, to the IFFLA industry development program.”

“We are thrilled to officially team up with ICF,” said Christina Marouda, IFFLA Board Chair. “I have personally worked with the organization since its inception on multiple film festivals and media projects, and I have such respect for the way they have thoughtfully and strategically developed the organization and selflessly supported diverse creative output.”

“They have been a financial and creative partner to IFFLA over numerous festivals already, which makes this a natural fit. I have no doubt that we can bring even greater impact together,” she added.

“We couldn’t be happier to see this match between our two organizations,” ICF President and co-founder Raoul Bhavnani stated. “We care deeply about supporting serious artistry and find real kinship with what Christina and the IFFLA team have built over more than 20 years. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

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The two organizations also announced that the next edition of IFFLA will run June 27-30 with Anu Rangachar, head of the international program at Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, as artistic director.

Rangachar is involved in coproduction of arthouse Indian independent films and is a distributor of arthouse world cinema titles in the US. She’s been associated with IFFLA for the past 15 years and has facilitated many international collaborations. Before that, she attended a film school in New York City and worked with Rituparno Ghosh and Ashim Ahluwalia.