Editor

The seventh annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles announces its 2009 Award winners with Nina Paley's SITA SINGS THE BLUES as the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature and Nandita Das's FIRAAQ receiving an Honorable Mention in the category. Rajesh Jala's CHILDREN OF THE PYRE was named the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. Dipti Gogna’s NARMEEN won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short with Sushrut Jain’s ANDHERI receiving an Honorable Mention.

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.

Christina Marouda, IFFLA Director, said, "This film festival has been a pivotal one in celebrating the impressive diversity of filmmaking styles and vision from both well-known Indian filmmakers and new cinematic voices emerging in the Indian filmmaking community. And the award winners only highlighted that fact. 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." more details