Ashvin Kumar

Ashvin Kumar
Ashvin Kumar shooting for Dazed in Doon in The Doon School (2010)
Born	Ashvin Kumar 1973 Kolkata
Occupation	Director, producer, editor, screenwriter
Website	http://www.ashvinkumar.com

Ashvin Kumar is an independent Indian filmmaker, who has written, directed and produced a wide range of films, including the documentaries Inshallah, Kashmir (2012) and Inshallah Football (2010); feature-length ecological thriller The Forest (2012); award-winning short film Little Terrorist (2004); coming-of-age tale Dazed in Doon (2010) and his debut film Road to Ladakh (2004) starring Irrfan Khan.

In 2005, he became the youngest Indian writer/director with an Academy Award Oscar® nomination, Ashvin is also the first Indian to be nominated at the European Film Academy with his film Little Terrorist which has been part of official selections to over 130 film festivals, winning awards in 25 of them, including the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) LA.

At present Ashvin is in pre-production with 'Noor', a story of three generations of women trapped in one of the world's forgotten conflicts - Kashmir. He is also developing 'Hype' - a hedonistic clash of youthful aspirations with society, culture seeped in tradition: a view of urban middle-classes of New Delhi, contemporary India in a critical time of its globalization. In addition, a storytelling project for ‘Kids in Conflict’, whose aim is to teach screenwriting and film-making to kids who have to live in war-zones, an attempt to humanise and understand the internal wars raging in democratic India today.

Ashvin Kumar was born in Kolkata, India and is well-known fashion designer, Ritu Kumar’s son. He did his schooling from La Martiniere Kolkata, Modern School and The Doon School, Dehradun. He describes his experience as a student at Doon as “overall pretty miserable”. He went on to study at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, where he was an active member of the renowned Shakespeare Society and then at Goldsmith’s University, London, where he received a bachelor's degree in media and communication and briefly, at the London Film School. He has described himself as a “resounding dropout” and of his experience at film school he says, “The institutionalization of cinema was suffocating. I wanted to learn on the job. I wanted to be adventurous.” The lack of opportunities to make short films led him to move from New Delhi to London.