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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

  • Glossary of Non-Human Love

    During the posthuman era, artificial intelligence colonises humanity. The machines fail to understand one aspect of human life: love.

    • Harbour

  • Kali of Emergency

    The goddess Kali takes human form in an inscrutable, transfixing avant-garde work.

    • Focus: The Shape of Things to Come?

  • Devastated

    A potent, provocative confrontation with the primal contradictions of Indian civilisation and religiosity.

    • Harbour

  • End Note

    Three women reflect on their years at school in the beautiful experimental short after Beckett.

    • Short: As Long As It Takes

  • Vakratunda Swaha

    Layered film combines rituals honouring the Hindu god Ganesha with very personal images and confessions.

    • Spectrum Shorts