The Festival favorite “Lipstick Under My Burkha,” which has been not been allowed to screen in the India, will open the Indian Film Festival Los Angeles 15th edition on April 5th. The fest will close with the Venice Film Festival award winner “Hotel Salvation” on April 9th.

The Indian film censor board refused to allow a theatrical release for the “Burkha,” citing the “sexual scenes, abusive words and audio pornography” in the film, the movie has won kudos at the Tokyo film festival.

The “Lipstick” director Alankrita Shrivastava will attend the fest, as will as Adil Hussain, star of the “Hotel Salvation.” The fest moves this year to the Regal L.A. Live Barco Innovation Center.

The rest of the lineup includes the two world premieres, five North American bows, five U.S. premieres and also 11 premieres that will be new to the Los Angeles. The last year’s jury winner, “Interrogation,” was submitted as the India’s foreign-language Oscar entry.

Other films in the lineup are “A Death in the Gunj,” actress of the movie is Konkona Sen Sharma’s directorial debut; Ananya Kasaravalli’s “The Chronicles of Hari,” co-written with her father, Girish, and Gopalkrishna Pai; Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy’s “Billion Color Story”; Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s “Once Again”; and Suman  Mukhopadhyay’s “Incomplete.”

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Besides the feature films, the slate includes several other documentaries and shorts.

As India’s diverse array of the talented filmmakers continues to be recognized around the world for their compelling and daring work, IFFLA is extremely proud to collect the best films from the emerging voices and experienced masters and also present them to Los Angeles, said Mike Dougherty, director of the programming.

Mrudula Duddempudi.