Ashish Avikunthak is an experimental filmmaker who has been making films in India since the mid nineties. His films have been shown worldwide in film festivals, galleries and museums. Notable screenings were at the Tate Modern, London, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, along with London, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Berlin film festivals among other locations.
He has had retrospective of his works at Goethe Institute, Calcutta (2004), Les Inattendus, Lyon (2006), Yale University (2008) and the National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai (2008).
He has a PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford University and has taught at Yale University. He is now an Assistant Professor of Film Media at the Harrington School of Communication & Media, University of Rhode Island.

Il a été diplomé en anthropologie culturelle à l'Université de Stanford, et a enseigné à l'Université de Yale. Il est maintenant Professeur Assistant de « Film Media » à l'Harrington School of Communication & Media, à l'Université de Rhode Island.

Ashish Avikunthak
India
1998 | 0:32:00

A tetralogy in four movies thematically coherent, connected consciously by their explorer nature, in an attempt of examination of the various degrees of functioning of the reality of the human existence.

Ashish Avikunthak
India
1999 | 0:22:00

The film attempts to negotiate with the duality that is associated with the ceremonial veneration of the Mother Goddess Kali- the presiding deity of Calcutta. It delves into the subliminal layers of consciousness, underlying the ritual of Kali worship. The film ruminates on the nuanced trans-sexuality that is prevalent in the ceremonial performance of male devotees cross-dressing as Kali, in an act of obsessive devotion.

Ashish Avikunthak
India
2002 | 0:18:15

The film explores the moment of imaginative intersection of two seventeenth century classical artistic tradition- Shakespearean tragedy and South Indian dance form- Kathakali. Giving birth to a hybrid performance merging the epitome of English literature and the quintessence of Indian art. Situated in an ambivalent dramatic space, the Shakespearean English, as a symbol of a colonial language, collapses into the classical renderation of an orthodox dance form.

Ashish Avikunthak
India
2005 | 0:18:00

Three women reminisce about their times at school and rekindle and affirm old friendships. They share a strange secret about each other that is never made known to us. The film is a cinematic interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s 1967 dramaticule, “Come and Go”.

Ashish Avikunthak
India
2010 | 0:21:15

In 1997, I filmed a sequence - a friend immersing an idol of Ganesha at Chowpati beach, Bombay on the last day of the Ganapati festival. A year later, he committed suicide. After twelve years, I completed the film. Using his footage as the leitmotif, this film is a requiem to a dead friend.