At IFFLA 2026, demonic brides and lonely souls

This year’s edition of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (April 23-26) has a crisp selection that isn’t restricted to India but extends to offerings from the subcontinent. While India has contributed compelling titles, there are noteworthy movies from Pakistan and Bangladesh too.

Anuparna Roy’s Songs of Forgotten Trees is part of the programme. Roy’s remarkable feature debut, starring Naaz Shaikh and Sumi Baghel, explores the dynamic between two flatmates. Thooya, an aspiring actress, and Shweta, an IT sales executive, are migrants to Mumbai, adjusting to its unsettling rhythms and to each other within the rooms and corridors of the house they share.

Also from India is another assured debut, Tribeny Rai’s Shape of Momo, in which a young woman moves back to her home in Sikkim, only to run into minor and major emotional crises. Led by Gaumaya Gurung, the film examines the meaning of womanhood in a society that prefers male children and places limits on self-expression.

Anusha Rizvi’s The Great Shamshuddin Family is also about the joys and tensions that bubble away within the most basic social unit. An academic trying to complete a presentation is...

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