‘Angammal', ‘Bad Girl' and other Tamil titles to shine at Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2025
The line-up is led by Vipin Radhakrishnan's film Angammal, starring Geetha Kailasam, Saran, and Thendral Raghunathan. The stirring film, set in a remote 1990s Tamil Nadu village, examines the discomfort and chaos that arises when a son tries to 'modernise' his mother's traditional ways to avoid social embarrassment. What begins as a simple act spirals into a sharp commentary on shame, culture, and control. The film has been selected for Best Indie Film, Best Actress and Best Director.
Then comes the Vetri Maaran-produced Bad Girl, which has already created ripples across Tamil Nadu. The coming-of-age feature directed by Varsha Bharath follows Ramya (Anjali Sivaraman) on a chaotic journey from adolescence to adulthood. Caught between overbearing parents, social expectations, unrequited crushes, and internal chaos, Ramya's story resonates with the realities of many young Indian women navigating identity, love, and mental health. The film has been nominated for Best Actress and Best Director.
ALSO READ: Director Varsha Bharath on what it takes to be a 'Bad Girl'
Filmmaker Vani Subramanian's documentary title, Cinema Pe Cinema, will also see its Australian premiere at the festival. A tribute to India's single-screen theatres and the communal movie-watching culture they nurtured, the film gently examines a fading cinematic heritage through memory, nostalgia, and resistance to erasure.
Meanwhile, all the way from France comes actor-director Lawrence Valin's Tamil political drama, Little Jaffna, starring Valin, Vela Ramamoorthy and Radikaa Sarathkumar. 'The film follows Michael, a police officer tasked with infiltrating a Tamil separatist group in Paris. As he immerses himself in their world, he begins to empathise with the very people he was meant to expose, blurring the lines between duty, truth, and belonging,' reads a press release.
The Tamil slate also includes the tender short film, Farewell, coming from the UK by Soham Kundu, starring Samir Mahat and Vishnu Krishnan. 'In a single day, two friends—one heartbroken, the other on the verge of marriage—confront grief, nostalgia, and their tangled past in a quiet yet emotionally resonant journey,' reads the logline.
The 2025 edition of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) will be held from August 14 to 24.
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