Ashish Avikunthak
Ashish AVIKUNTHAK (1972, India) is an award-winning experimental filmmaker who has been making films in India since the mid-1990s. He holds a PhD in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University, previously he taught at Yale University and is currently an Associate Professor of Film and Media at the University of Rhode Island. His work has been applauded for its “political and theoretical impetus” and distinct “formal visual language”. He has had notable screenings at venues and festivals such as Tate Modern, Centre George Pompidou, Taipei Biennial, IFFR and Berlinale. Avikunthak has also worked as a social activist, archaeologist and anthropologist. His films Glossary of Non-Human Love (2021) and Devastated (2024) had their world premiere at IFFR.
Filmography
Et Cetera (1998, short), Kalighat athikatha/Kalighat Fetish (1999, short), Rummaging for Pasts: Excavating Sicily, Digging Bombay (2001, short), Brihnnlala ki khelkali/Dancing Othello (2001, short), Performing Death (2002, short), Antraal/End Note (2005, short), Nirakar chhaya/Shadows Formless (2007), Vakratunda Swaha (2010), Katho upanishad (2011), Rati chakravyuh (2013), Kalkimanthankatha/The Churning of Kalki (2015), Aapothkalin trikalika/The Kali of Emergency (2016), Vrindavani vairagya/Dispassionate Love (2017), Na manush premer kothamala/Glossary of Non-Human Love (2021), Vidhvastha/Devastated (2024)
More info: Ashish Avikunthak
Ashish Avikunthak at IFFR
-
Kali of Emergency
The goddess Kali takes human form in an inscrutable, transfixing avant-garde work.
-
Glossary of Non-Human Love
During the posthuman era, artificial intelligence colonises humanity. The machines fail to understand one aspect of human life: love.
-
Devastated
A potent, provocative confrontation with the primal contradictions of Indian civilisation and religiosity.
-
End Note
Three women reflect on their years at school in the beautiful experimental short after Beckett.
-
Vakratunda Swaha
Layered film combines rituals honouring the Hindu god Ganesha with very personal images and confessions.