Hindi
Around 25 films including biopic on maestro AR Rahman screened at IFFLA
NEW DELHI: A total of around 25 films including sixteen features – among them the opening film Haraamkhor by Shlok Sharma and several shorts including the acclaimed Jai Ho on maestro AR Rahman by Delhi-based filmmaker Umesh Aggarwal are being screened at the ongoing 13th annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.
The Festival which started on 8 April will go on till 12 April at the ArcLight Hollywood.
Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the opening film has been produced by Anurag Kashyap known for many acclaimed films including The Gangs of Wasseypur and Guneet Monga of the Lunchbox fame.
The closing film is Dhanak, a coming-of-age film directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, and the centerpiece film is the British comedy One Crazy Thing directed by Amit Gupta. The movie stars Ray Panthaki and Daisy Bevan and centers on a man struggling to overcome the notoriety from his sex tape.
Actor-producer Abhay Deol has been included in the jury and the other narrative jury members are filmmaker Sean Baker, HFPA member and frequent Board director Yoram Kahana, Warner Bros executive vice president (Physical Production) Ravi Mehta, and author and film curator Berenice Reynaud.
The shorts jury includes actor Danny Pudi, Outfest director of programming Lucy Mukerjee-Brown, Sundance Shorts programmer Lisa Ogdie, and Universal manager of the Emerging Writers Fellowship Heather Morris Washington.
Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s debut feature Labour Of Love following one day in the life of a married couple is also being screened.
Other highlights are Danis Tanovic’s Tigers, Cannes entry Titli by Kanu Behl and the Los Angeles premiere of Miss India America.
The films, including four world premieres, seven North American bows, two American and 10 Los Angeles preems from not just India, but also the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Cuba, in 10 languages including English, Spanish and German.
Tanovic’s Tigers stars Emraan Hashmi and is about the true-life tale of the salesman who took on a drug company that marketed a deadly baby formula.
Titli is a coming-of-age story starring Shashank Arora; while Miss India America stars Tiya Sircar (The Internship) and Hannah Simone (New Girl) in the story of a woman who enters a beauty pageant after losing her boyfriend to a former Miss India America.
Apart from the films, there will be an Emerging Writers Program designed to identify and cultivate new and unique voices with a passion for storytelling. Talented screenwriters who have the potential to thrive, but do not have access to or visibility within the industry are taking part. Writers chosen for the programme will work exclusively with the NBC Universal studio for one year to hone their skills.
In a music industry that often rewards speed, spectacle, and instant recall, Navjot Ahuja’s journey feels refreshingly different. His story is not built on noise. It is built on patience, discipline, emotional honesty, and a quiet commitment to becoming better with every passing year. After 14 years of struggle, learning, performing, and writing, Navjot stands today as an artist whose success has not changed his centre. If anything, it has only made his purpose clearer.
For Navjot, music has never been about chasing fame alone. It has always been about expression. It is about writing more truthfully, singing more skillfully, understanding himself more deeply, and becoming a kinder human being in the process. That rare clarity is what gives his journey its beauty.
Where It All Began: A Writer Before a Singer
Indian singer and songwriter Navjot Ahuja’s musical journey began in the most familiar of places: school assemblies. But even then, what was growing inside him was not only the desire to sing. It was the need to write.
Long before he saw himself as a performer, he had already discovered the emotional release that writing offered him. For Navjot, words became the first true channel for feeling. Songwriting came before singing because writing was the only way he could let emotions flow through him fully. That inner pull shaped his artistic identity early on.
Like many young musicians, he sharpened his craft by creating renditions of popular songs.
Those experiments became his training ground. But the turning point came in 2012, when he wrote his first original song. That moment did not just mark the beginning of songwriting. It marked the beginning of self-definition.
A Calling He Did Not Chase, But Accepted
What makes the latest Indian singer-songwriter Navjot’s story especially compelling is the way he describes his relationship with music. He does not frame it as a career he aggressively pursued. In his own understanding, music was not something he chose. It was something that chose him.
There was a time when he imagined a very different future for himself. He wanted to become a successful engineer, like many young people shaped by ambition and conventional expectations. But life had a different script waiting for him. During his college years, around 2021, music entered his life professionally and began taking a firmer shape.
That shift was not driven by image-building or industry ambition. It came from acceptance. Navjot embraced the fact that music had claimed him in a way no other path could. That sense of surrender continues to define the artist he is today.
An Artist Guided by Instinct, Not Influence
Unlike many singers who speak openly about idols, icons, and musical role models, Navjot’s creative world is built differently. He does not believe his music comes from imitation or inherited influence. He listens inward.
He has never considered himself shaped by ideals in the traditional sense. In fact, he admits that he does not particularly enjoy listening to songs, especially his own. His decisions as a songwriter and singer come from instinct. He writes what feels right. He trusts what his inner voice tells him. He positions his music according to what he honestly believes in, not what trends demand.
That creative independence gives his work a distinct emotional sincerity. His songs do not feel calculated. They feel alive.
The Long Years of Invisible Struggle
Every artist carries a chapter of struggle, and Navjot’s was long, demanding, and deeply formative. One of the biggest challenges he faced was building continuity as the best new indian singer songwriter in an era where musical collaboration is increasingly fluid.
For emerging singers, especially those trying to build with a band, consistency can be difficult. Instrumentalists today have more opportunities than ever to freelance and perform with multiple artists. While that growth is positive and well deserved, it can make things harder for singers who are still trying to establish a steady team and sound around their work.
For Navjot, one of the most difficult phases came during 2021 and 2022, when he was doing club shows almost every day. It was a period of relentless performance, but not always personal fulfillment. He was largely singing covers because clubs were not open to original songs that audiences did not yet know.
For a new Indian singer and songwriter, that can be a painful compromise. To perform constantly and still not have the freedom to share your own voice requires not just resilience, but restraint.
“Khat” and the Grace of Staying Unchanged
After 14 years of effort, Navjot’s new love song Khat became a defining milestone. Professionally, he acknowledges that the song changed how society viewed him as a musician. It strengthened his place in the public eye and altered his standing in meaningful ways.
Yet personally, he remains unchanged.
That is perhaps the most striking part of his story. Navjot says his routine is still the same. His calm is still the same. His writing process is still the same. He does not want success or failure to interfere with the purity of his art. For him, emotional detachment from public outcomes is essential because the moment an artist becomes too attached to validation, the writing begins to shift.
His joy comes not from numbers, but from the attempt. If he has tried to improve his skill today, if he has written his heart out more honestly than before, then he is at peace.
Growth, Not Glory, Remains the Real Goal
Even now, Navjot is not consumed by labels such as singles artist, performer, or digital success story. His focus remains deeply personal. He wants to sing better. He wants to play instruments better. He wants to understand himself more. And he wants to become a kinder person.
That is what makes Navjot Ahuja’s journey so moving. It is not simply the story of a musician finding recognition. It is the story of an artist who continues to grow inward, even as the world begins to look outward at him. In an age obsessed with applause, Navjot reminds us that the most meaningful success often begins in silence, honesty, and the courage to remain true to oneself.
