Shadows Formless

In 1997, Ashish Avikunthak filmed a sequence -- a friend and artist, Girish Dahiwale, immersing an idol of Ganesha at Chowpati beach, Bombay on the last day of the Ganapati festival. A year later, he committed suicide. After twelve years, Avikunthak completed the film. Using his footage as the leitmotif, this film is a requiem to a dead friend, and metamorphosises into an “existential inquiry into the idea of death”.

Three women reminisce about their times at school and rekindle and affirm old friendships. They share a strange secret about each other that is never made known to us. The film is a cinematic interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s 1967 dramaticule, ‘Come and Go’.

The film attempts to negotiate with the duality that is associated with the ceremonial veneration of the Mother Goddess Kali. It ruminates on the nuanced transness that is prevalent, in the ceremonial performance of male devotees cross dressing as Kali. This is interwoven with grotesque elements of a sacrificial ceremony, which forms a vital part of the worship of the Goddess.

Recalling memories of a friend who committed suicide, three lovers slowly slide into an anguish labyrinth of desire, loss and longing. They entangle in a colliding maze of forsaken loves, failed expectations and imperfect anticipations. A disintegrating web arises in which love exists, but as dispassionate yearning. Here affection is an indifferent desire that burns the soul to death.

In a parallel universe in our own space-time continuum, humanity has been overrun by artificial intelligence. The machines are better, faster and more efficient at everything, outstripping their makers. However, one aspect of humanity escapes them: love. Their guidebook attempts to capture the phenomenon in 64 terms, including jealousy, regret and ardour. Posing in homey and romantic settings, they run through the entire spectrum with digital precision, yet without a hint of passion. Director Ashish Avikunthak outlines a worrying, yet confusing impression of a posthuman future in which technology has overtaken and annexed humanity. He presents the new masters of the universe as 2.0 versions of the Hindu pantheon. Yet while Hanuman, Shiva and Kali sometimes reveal all too human traits, this is definitely not the case when it comes to love. Loves dies out with humanity.

In confrontational conversations with his wife and his lover, a middle-aged Indian policeman opens up about his work as a 'sacrificial assistant', a state-designated agent tasked with extra-judicial killings of Muslim men. Elsewhere in the city, Lord Krishna and the prince Arjuna enact a dialogue from the Bhagavad Gita. Paralysed into inaction during battle by human considerations, Arjuna seeks the counsel of Krishna, who instructs him on the moral duty of a warrior.

This is a video about the Park Street cemetery in Calcutta - one of the earliest colonial cemeteries in the world – its degrading conditions and its status as an abandoned legacy of an empire lost and forgotten.

‘Et cetera’ is a tetralogy of four separate films that seek to examine the various levels at which the reality of human existence functions.

Having invaded Lanka to rescue his abducted wife, Lord Ram must face the mighty Meghnad, Lanka’s invincible crown prince. What should have been a righteous battle between equals is manipulated by the gods, who conspire to favour Ram and deceive Meghnad.

The film centers on the metaphysical dialog between a young student and the God of Death.

Shakespearean theatricality meets the subtlety of Kathakali subverted in the dramatic space of street theatre to give birth to a performative ‘caliban’ – Khelkali – a hybrid act of articulating the post colonial irony of contemporary India.

During social and political turmoil, what is the manifestation of divine intervention? How do the gods and goddesses act in the volatility of the contemporary world? If they walk on earth as men and women, how do they endure the chaos of modernity? Centering on the terrible and majestic incarnations of Goddess Kali and her celestial avatars, this film is a metaphysical contemplation in times of perpetual emergencies. Avikunthak’s remarkable sense of forms finds expression in the extraordinary combination of performance and essayistic cinematic practices.

Following the footsteps of Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot', two actor from Calcutta go to the largest gathering of humans on earth - the Hindu festival of Maha Kumbh of Allahabad in 2013, which occurs once in 12 years, to search for Kalki - the Tenth and the final avatar of Lord Vishnu. The most mysterious of Vishnu's Avatar who has been on earth but has never been found. However, an outbreak of a monumental war occurs during their quest. They then prepare themselves by reading Chairman Mao-se-Tung's 'Little Red Book'.

Rummaging for Pasts is an experimental juxtaposition of two cinematic documents: the video diary of an international archaeological excavation and a collection of assorted eight millimeter found footage of Indian weddings.

On a lunar eclipse midnight, in a desolate temple, six young newlywed couples and a priestess meet after a mass wedding. They sit in a circle and talk. This their last conversation - an exchange about life, death, beginning, end and every thing in between.