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Ashish Avikunthak

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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 a professor of film media at Harrington School of Communication, University of Rhode Island.[4][5][6]

He is considered to be an iconoclastic film artist[7] who works outside Indian mainstream cinema.[8] 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.[9] Mythical, metaphysical, metaphorical and mundane elements are found in his work.[10] 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.”[11] In his essay "Cinema of Prayoga", Amrit Gangar names Avikunthak's films as an example of his eponymous strain of filmmaking.[12][13][14]

Early life[edit]

Ashish Avikunthak was born in Jabalpur in 1972[15] and was raised in Kolkata.[16] He did his B.A. in social work from Bombay University in 1994, during this time worked with Narmada Bachao Andolan.[17] [18] He later studied archaeology in Deccan College, Pune. He did his PhD from Stanford University in cultural anthropology[3] and then taught at Yale.[16][19]

Short Films[edit]

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.[20] [21] His first film “Et Cetera” was a tetralogy consisting of four one-shot films made on 16mm, between 1995-97 - Renunciation, Soliloquy, Circumcision and, The Walk.[22] Each of these films explores the dialectic between screen/film time and real time to examine actions as ritual. His next 16mm film, “Kalighat Fetish” won the best documentary award at the Tampere Film Festival in 2001, which dealt with rituals of animal sacrifice and cross-dressing in the context of Kalighat Kali Temple in Kolkata.[23]

In 2002, Avikunthak adapted Samuel Becket’s enigmatic dramaticule “Come and Go” into a 16mm short film in Hindi called “Antaral” (End Note).[24][25] In an analysis of the film in relationship to the play Arka Chattaopadhya writes: “Ashish Avikunthak’s adaptation introduces a fascinating element of play into the Beckettian structure of this displacement and illumines significant nuances about its potential continuation…Avikunthak’s deconstructive play unmakes Beckett’s structure on the one hand, then on the other, the precision of the Beckettian structure responds to this element of play by implicating Avikunthak’s structure in the braiding principle central to its own operation.”[26]

His 2010 film, “Vakratunda Swaha” premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam[27] was featured at the Taipei Biennial 2012[28] and was long listed for The Skoda Prize in 2011.[29] Maurizio Calbi of University of Salerno, Italy writing about Avikunthak’s practice of this period notes that in his films, “(a) ritual quasi-mythical quality of everyday life emerge(s); of letting the ‘ordinary’ continually re-mark itself in its singularity as ‘extra-ordinary.’”[30]

Feature Films[edit]

Avikunthak's first feature film “Nirakar Chhaya” (Shadows Formless) had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2007.[31] It is a Bengali language film that was adapted from Sethumadhavan's award winning Malayalam language novel “Pandavapuram”, translocated to Kolkata from Kerala.[32][33] 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.[34][35]

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.[36] 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.[37] The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Shanghai Biennale.[38]

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.[39] This film was stopped from a private screening in a Kolkata art gallery by the Central Board of Film Certification in 2017.[40][41] In a review published in Artforum, art critic Murtaza Vali, writes that: “through this film, Avikunthak orchestrates a somewhat unexpected encounter between opposing perspectives or bodies of knowledge—sacred/secular, modernity/tradition, philosophy/politics—the friction between them forcing each to open up to the wisdom of the other. And by using an uncompromisingly difficult avant-garde form and structure to explore Hindu thought and ritual practice, the film troubles ongoing attempts by fundamentalists to assert definitive orthodox interpretations onto a religion defined by its rich multiplicities.”[42]

In 2017, Avikunthak's film “Kali of Emergency” which he made a year before had its world première in Forum Expanded in Berlin International Film Festival.[43] In the screening of this film at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2023, it noted that: "Kali of Emergency juxtaposes two kinds of Hindu iconography, mingling the elaborately costumed, stylised gods of popular representations with the austere forms found in pre-modern paintings and temple sculptures...Filled with incandescent images, Kali of Emergency is of a piece with Avikunthak’s singular, personal body of work.[44]

"Glossary of Non-Human Love" was shown at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2021[45][46]. It is a film that “is set in a parallel universe where artificial intelligence has usurped humanity’s reign over the planet…Glossary of Non-Human Love can also be viewed as an ecocritical commentary on technological evolution. Due to the fragmented glossary structure and its exploration of AI, it almost feels like code is being parsed while the film itself becomes a dynamic entity.”[47]

In 2024, “Vidvastha” (Devastated) had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam,[48][49] which is a film “that is not afraid to directly confront the increasingly authoritarian national trajectory while also paving the way for future generations of Indian filmmakers to think in terms of cinematic linguistics that do not conform to the derivative form that plagues contemporary Indian movies.”[50] In a review of the film in ArtReview "Devastated" is described as a: “commentarial film that examines the double life of a middle-aged Hindu policeman… through its complex and probing discourses, grittily examines the nature of violence in its diverse forms.”[51]

Filmography[edit]

[3]
Year Original title International title Language(s) Notes
1997 Et cetera Et cetera English
1999 Kalighaat Fetish Kalighaat Fetish Hindi
2000 Performing Death Performing Death No spoken language
2001 Rummaging for Pasts Rummaging for Pasts: Excavating Sicily, Digging Bombay English film essay; partly based on Monte Polizzo excavations in Sicily[52]
2002 Brihannala ki Khelkali Dancing Othello English
2005 Antaral End Note Bengali
2007 Nirakar Chhaya Shadows Formless English debut feature; based on Malayalam novella Pandavapuram by Sethu[53]
2010 Vakratunda Swaha Vakratunda Swaha Hindi co-directed with Moloy Mukherjee
2011 Katho Upanishad Katho Upanishad Hindi based on the dialogue between Yama and Nachiketa, from the Katha Upanishad[53][54]
2014 Rati Chakravyuh Rati Chakravyuh Bengali
2015 Kalkimanthankatha The Churning of Kali Bengali inspired by Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett[55]
2017 Aapothkalin Trikalika The Kali of Emergency Bengali
2018 Vrindavani Vairagya Dispassionate Love Bengali
2021 Na Manush Premer Kothamala Glossary of Non-Human Love Bengali
2024 Vidhvastha Devastated Bengali

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.[56][57] Uzma Z. Rizvi in the review of this book in Antiquity writes: "Avikunthak successfully argues that Archaeological Survey of India's bureaucracy, and the religious politics that inform the structures of those offices, run so deep in archaeological practice in India that it cannot but impact the very nature of the archaeological evidence that it produces and presents as scientific fact.[58]

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.[59] He was eventually allowed after he spoke in English.[60][61] 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."[62][63]

Personal life[edit]

He married twice; his second marriage is to Debleena Sen Chadha, an actress in Bengali-language films. He has a daughter.[64]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Bengali film makes it to Berlin festival - Times of India". The Times of India. 22 January 2017.
  2. ^ "URI associate professor's experimental film to be screened at Berlin Film Festival in February". today.uri.edu.
  3. ^ a b c "Ashish Avikunthak". Chatterjee & Lal.
  4. ^ "Ashish Avikunthak by Arun A.K. - BOMB".
  5. ^ "Ashish Chadha". Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  6. ^ "'Devastated' world premiere at Rotterdam film festival". The Times of India. 2023-12-22. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  7. ^ "Vidvastha (Devastated) Review: The Bizarre and the Bhagavad Gita - ArtReview".
  8. ^ "Far Out Meets: Ashish Avikunthak on making cinema from the margins - Far Out". 18 November 2021.
  9. ^ "Eyes Wide Open". 29 July 2015.
  10. ^ "I'm disillusioned with modernity, says filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak". 31 May 2015.
  11. ^ name, Site. "Ashish Avikunthak by Niru Ratnam / ArtReview". artreview.com.
  12. ^ Srinivasan, Srikanth (2012-06-02). "Cinema of Prayoga". The Hindu.
  13. ^ "Cinema of Prayoga". experimenta.in. 2015.
  14. ^ Laali (2015). "CINEMA OF PRAYOGA: INDIAN AVANT-GARDE CINEMA". MUBI.
  15. ^ "AN IDIOM UNTO ITSELF: AN ASHISH AVIKUNTHAK RETROSPECTIVE". MUBI. 2021.
  16. ^ a b Sawyer, Frances (2009-01-16). "Profile – A Split Existence". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  17. ^ "Far Out Meets: Ashish Avikunthak on cinema from the margins". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 2021-11-18. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  18. ^ "CinemaSpeak: Ashish Avikunthak on cinema as art". Media India Group. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  19. ^ Gupta, Gargi (2017-12-05). "I'm disillusioned with modernity, says filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak". DNAIndia.
  20. ^ "Ashish Avikunthak: East By Northwest". Débordements. 31 March 2013.
  21. ^ "Their experiments with truth". The Big Indian Picture. 1 June 2013.
  22. ^ "Outside the boundaries". The Hindu. 2015-04-16. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  23. ^ "International Competition Winners". Tampere Film Festival. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  24. ^ Chakraborty, Thirthankar (2021-07-27), "Translating Silence: Ashish Avikunthak's Cinematographic Version of Come and Go", Beckett’s Voices / Voicing Beckett, Brill, pp. 221–234, doi:10.1163/9789004468382_017, ISBN 978-90-04-46838-2, retrieved 2024-06-28
  25. ^ Artdaily. "Two Solo Exhibitions by Ashish Avikunthak and Sakti Burman". artdaily.cc. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  26. ^ Chattopadhyay, Arka (2017-02-23). "Exhausting the inexhaustible: reading the structure of Samuel Beckett's Come and Go through Ashish Avikunthak's Endnote". Textual Practice. 31 (2): 399–415. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2016.1187667. ISSN 0950-236X.
  27. ^ "Vakratunda Swaha". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  28. ^ "Home". TFAM-2023TaipeiBiennial. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  29. ^ "Skoda Prize 2011 announces Top Twenty". CarWale. 2011-09-22. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  30. ^ Calbi, Maurizio (2011). "Postcolonial Entanglements: Performing Shakespeare and Kathakali in Ashish Avikunthak's Dancing Othello". Anglistica. 15 (2): 27–32.
  31. ^ "NIRAKAR CHHAYA". archive.pardo.ch.
  32. ^ "Charmed by transcendental magic". The New Indian Express. 21 May 2013.
  33. ^ "Reinventing the mythical world". The New Indian Express. 22 May 2013.
  34. ^ "The secret of death". Mid Day, Mumbai. 9 July 2012.
  35. ^ "Should 'high art' evolve with the times to stay in the race?". Sunday Guardian, Mumbai. 12 July 2012.
  36. ^ Sorabjee, Deepika (2014-07-06). "Circling Time". ArtSlant. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
  37. ^ "Temporal Universe". Indian Express. 3 July 2014.
  38. ^ "Ashish Avikunthak". Shanghai Biennale 2014. Shanghai Biennale. 2014-12-12. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
  39. ^ "Eyes Wide Open". Indian Express. 29 July 2015.
  40. ^ "Uncertified film screening at Kolkata gallery miffs CBFC". Times of India. 17 March 2017.
  41. ^ "Censor board stops screening of independent film Kalkimanthakatha". Anandabazar Patrika. 18 March 2017.
  42. ^ Vali, Murtaza (2015-11-01). "Ashish Avikunthak". Artforum. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  43. ^ "Goddess in the details: 'Aapothkalin Trikalika'". Mint. 24 June 2017.
  44. ^ "Kali of Emergency". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  45. ^ "India at IFFR 2021: 'Glossary of Non-human Love' and 'Everything is Cinema'". Mintlounge. 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  46. ^ "Glossary of Non-Human Love". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  47. ^ "'Glossary of Non-Human Love': Ashish Avikunthak and sci-fi". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 2022-12-08. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  48. ^ "Devastated". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  49. ^ "'Devastated' world premiere at Rotterdam film festival". The Times of India. 2023-12-22. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  50. ^ "'Devastated': Ashish Avikunthak and Indian political cinema". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 2024-04-03. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  51. ^ "Vidvastha (Devastated) Review: The Bizarre and the Bhagavad Gita". artreview.com. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  52. ^ Bose, Swapnil Dhruv (2023-10-17). "'Rummaging for Pasts': an Ashish Avikunthak exhibition at Chatterjee and Lal". Far Out Magazine.
  53. ^ a b A.K., Arun (2021). "An Idiom Unto Itself: An Ashish Avikunthak Retrospective". Screen Slate.
  54. ^ "Treasures of the Yale Film Archive: Katho Upanishad" (PDF). Yale Film Archive. 2018.
  55. ^ "Kalkimanthankatha". University of Kent. 2016-05-04.
  56. ^ Avikunthak, Ashish (2021-09-30). Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science, and Past in Postcolonial India (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009067119. ISBN 978-1-009-06711-9. S2CID 243742619.
  57. ^ Ray, Rajat (2022-11-19). "Bureaucratic Archaeology is a scholarly investigation of the history and hierarchical structure of the ASI". Indian Express.
  58. ^ Rizvi, Uzma Z. (2022-10-06). "Archaeology, ethnography and epistemic critiques of the nation". Antiquity. 96 (390): 1634–1637. doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.131. ISSN 0003-598X.
  59. ^ "Denied entry to Kolkata mall in dhoti: Filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak - India News, The Indian Express". indianexpress.com. 16 July 2017.
  60. ^ "Social apartheid: I was barred from entering a Kolkata mall because I was wearing a dhoti". 17 July 2017.
  61. ^ "Denied entry to Kolkata mall in dhoti: Filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak on 'public space'". 4 August 2017.
  62. ^ "Was Denied Entry Into Kolkata Mall For Wearing Dhoti, Alleges Filmmaker". 16 July 2017.
  63. ^ "All doors should open for those in traditional Indian wear". 24 July 2017.
  64. ^ Saini, Bhavya (2022-03-02). "I Fell In Love With Ashish Despite The 17-Year Age Gap, Says Debleena Sen Chadha". SheThePeople.

External links[edit]

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