“The Great Shamsuddin Family” to close 24th IFFLA

Family comedy-drama “The Great Shamsuddin Family” has been selected as the closing film for the 24th edition of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA), the organisers have announced.

The film, directed by Anusha Rizvi and presented by the makers of “Peepli Live”, will be screened on April 26. The movie will begin on April 23.

“‘The Great Shamsuddin Family’ comes from a deeply personal place, shaped by the chaos, contradictions, and warmth of families we all recognise. This story is very close to my heart, and bringing it to life has been an emotional journey,” Rizvi said.

“To have the film close at a festival like IFFLA, which champions bold and authentic South Asian voices, feels incredibly overwhelming and rewarding. It’s deeply moving to see a story so rooted in our everyday lives travel across geographies and find resonance with audiences everywhere,” Rizvi said in a statement.

A Star Studio18 and A Third World Films Production, “The Great Shamsuddin Family” was released on streaming platform JioHotstar in December. It follows Bani Ahmed, who faces her most important deadline while her house erupts in family chaos, forcing her to juggle a 12-hour writing sprint with an unfolding domestic emergency.

The movie features an ensemble cast of Kritika Kamra, Purab Kohli, Farida Jalal, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Juhi Babbar, Sheeba Chaddha, Dolly Ahluwalia, Natasha Rastogi and Nishank Verma, among others.

Lead actor Kamra, who plays the role of Bani Ahmed in the film, said it was an “incredibly special and emotional experience” for her to play the character.

“She is fiercely independent yet deeply tied to her family, constantly navigating love, chaos, and expectations, something so many of us relate to. The warmth the film has received on JioHotstar has been truly overwhelming, and it means so much to see our story now being celebrated on a global stage at IFFLA,” she added.

IFFLA annually presents a curated programme of features and shorts across narrative, documentary and animated formats, showcasing films from across the South Asian subcontinent as well as diaspora voices from around the world.

The festival, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, also hosts year-round programming including screenings, filmmaker discussions, retrospectives and masterclasses aimed at amplifying South Asian cinema and culture.

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