Ashish Avikunthak

Biography

Ashish Avikunthak (February 11, 1972) is an Indian avant-garde filmmaker, film theorist, archaeologist and cultural anthropologist. He is considered to be an iconoclastic film artist who works outside Indian mainstream cinema. His films explore Indian philosophy and existentialism and are categorized by their use of unorthodox cinematography and editing. Avikunthak films are rooted in Indian religion, epistemology, ritual and form. ArtReview describes his works as: “Avikunthak's works insist on an Indian epistemology while utilising a rigorously formal visual language that is clearly aware of Western avant-garde practices such as those of Andrei Tarkovsky and Samuel Beckett. These are self-consciously difficult works that are filmed in a self-consciously beautiful way.”

Directed

1. Dispassionate Love (2018) — Director
2. Vakratunda Swaha (2010) — Director
3. Glossary of Non-Human Love (2021) — Director
4. Shadows Formless (2007) — Director
5. End Note (2005) — Director
6. Kalighat Fetish (1999) — Director
7. Performing Death (2001) — Director
8. Rummaging for Pasts (2001) — Director
9. Rati Chakravyuh (2014) — Director
10. Et cetera (1997) — Director
11. Dancing Othello (2002) — Director
12. Devastated (2024) — Director
13. The Kali of Emergency (2017) — Director
14. The Killing of Meghnad (2026) — Director
15. Katho Upanishad (2011) — Director
16. The Churning of Kalki (2015) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Vakratunda Swaha (2010)