Ashish Avikunthak

Ashish Avikunthak (born 1972) is an Indian avant-garde filmmaker, film theorist, archaeologist and cultural anthropologist.^[1][2] His works have been screened at art galleries and private screenings, including Tate Modern, Centre George Pompidou, Paris Film Archive; along with Rotterdam, Locarno, London film festivals, among others.^[3]

He is considered to be an iconoclastic film artist^[4] who works outside Indian mainstream cinema.^[5] 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.^[6] Mythical, metaphysical, metaphorical and mundane elements are found in his work.^[7] 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.”^[8] In his essay "Cinema of Prayoga", Amrit Gangar names Avikunthak's films as an example of his eponymous strain of filmmaking.^[9][10][11]

Early life[edit]

Ashish Avikunthak was born in Jabalpur in 1972.^[12] He did his B.A. in social work from Bombay University in 1994, and later studied archaeology in Deccan College, Pune. He did his PhD from Stanford University in cultural anthropology^[3] and then taught at Yale.^[13]

Career[edit]

He is a professor of film media at Harrington School of Communication, University of Rhode Island.^[14] Avikunthak began his filmmaking career with short films made between 1995 and 2010. He created a body of work that explored ideas of ceremonial rituals, banality and the inter-relationships between selves and the concepts of ‘community’ and ‘politicality’ by challenging conventional forms of representations.^{[15] [16]} Avikunthak’s first feature film “Nirakar Chhaya” (Shadows Formless) had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2007.^[17] It is a Bengali language film that was adapted from Sethumadhavan's award winning Malayalam language novel “Pandavapuram”, translocated to Kolkata from Kerala.^[18][19] His 2010 Hindi language film, “Katho Upanishad" was an adaptation that transformed 6th century BCE Sanskrit language philosophical treatise Katha Upanishad into a triptych of three one-shots, with the longest being a 58-minute single-shot.^[20][21]

In 2013, Avikunthak made India’s first one-shot feature film – “Rati Chakravyuh.” The entire film was made in a single-shot measuring 102 minutes.^[22] Made in Kolkata it is Bengali language film, in which six newlywed couples on their wedding night sit in a circle with a priestess in an ancient temple and have a protracted exchange before they commit mass suicide.^[23] The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Shanghai Biennale.^[24] In 2015, Avikunthak released “Kalkimanthakatha” that was shot on location in the Allahabad Kumbh Mela in 2013. In this feature film, Samuel Beckett’s celebrated play “Waiting for Godot” is transplanted from its European context to Bengali language and the Hindu pilgrimage site of the Kumbh Mela.^[25] This film was stopped from a private screening in a Kolkata art gallery by the Central Board of Film Certification in 2017.^[26][27] In 2017, Avikunthak’s film “Aapothkalin Trikalika” which he made a year before had its world première in Forum Expanded in Berlin International Film Festival. ^[28]

Filmography[edit]

Academic career[edit]

In 2021, he wrote a book, Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science and Past in Postcolonial India, published by Cambridge University Press, dealing with the intersection of politics and archaeology in India.^[33][34]

Controversy[edit]

In July 2017, a social-media outrage erupted when Avikunthak was debarred from entering the upmarket Quest Mall in Kolkata because he was wearing a dhoti.^[35] He was eventually allowed after he spoke in English.^[36][37] In a Facebook post that went viral he wrote: “"This is unambiguously a new low for this city. Private clubs have always created hierarchies and distinctions because of clothing. Now public spaces are also threatened and a culture of segregation based on class is being practiced unhindered. I write this with a sense of deep disgust."^[38][39]

Personal life[edit]

He married twice; his second marriage is to Debleena Sen Chadha, an actress in Bengali-language films. He has a daughter.^[40]

See also[edit]

• Amrit Gangar
• Amit Dutta
• Film and Television Institute of India
• MUBI

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Ashish Avikunthak at IMDb
• MUBI page