Tamil film ‘Seththumaan’ and Malayalam film ‘Biriyaani’ bag top honours at IFFLA 2021

This year’s festival, which was made availabe in India for the first time, had over of 40 films from 17 languages with 16 women directors

The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) announced its Grand Jury winners and Audience Awards for the festival’s 19th edition, which was held virtually from May 20-27. Among the feature film category, Tamil filmmaker Thamizh’s directorial debut Seththumaan (Pig) won the top Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature, while the Malayalam film Biriyaani directed by Sajin Baabu was given an honorable mention. “The grand jury prize for Best Feature went to a film that impressed us tremendously, both in terms of filmmaking and dramaturgy. It is a phenomenal first feature, gentle and impactful, done with heart and guts, that is at the same time very candid and very mature and complex,” said the jury in a press statement. Produced by filmmaker Pa Ranjith’s Neelam Productions, it must be noted that Seththumaan had its world premiere at the International Film Festival of Kerala earlier this year. Ajitpal Singh’s debut feature, Fire In The Mountains, which had its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2021, won the Audience Award for Best Feature. The Grand Jury Prize for Best Short was awarded to Bittu, directed by Karishma Dev Dube, while Rima Das’ For Each Other and Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Kalp Sanghvi’s Wade were given honorable mentions and the Audience Award for Best Short was given to Aarti Neharsh’s The Song We Sang.