Ashvin Kumar

Ashvin faced a roadblock with Indian censors for his film No Fathers in Kashmir which initially received an 'A' certificate. He wrote an open letter to Prasoon Joshi, the director of CBFC, as well as appealed to the FCAT. The film got released with a U/A certificate on 5 April 2019.

In February 2016, Noor's Kickstarter campaign raised £74,000 ($100,000). The Kickstarter platform provided funding for the film without being held to anyone else's agendas, or having to compromise the creative vision of the script. To support the crowdfunding campaign, Ashvin traveled across the UK to visit Kashmiri communities in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Rochdale, Bradford and Birmingham and held free screenings of his films, Inshallah, Kashmir and Inshallah, Football.

Mrs. Tagore made further comments on the 16th anniversary of the women's press corps that were reported by the online version of Outlook Magazine to which Kumar has responded in an open letter to Mrs. Tagore taking on the wider issue of censorship, the relevance of the censor board using Inshallah, Football as an illustration saying that her comments "... would be mildly amusing if they didn't also cast a shadow on the average Indian citizen's freedoms to produce and receive messages, and if they didn't potentially compromise the livelihood of members of my (and your) fraternity–those troublesome film-makers who don't toe the line and whose discomfiting messages the nation needs to hear." A separate report of Mrs. Tagore's comments is more direct, calling Kumar's comments 'untrue'. Kumar has responded to this in the aforementioned open letter saying "You said that my statement about being denied a certification for my film Inshallah, Football was 'untrue'. I was hurt; after all, it is not often that I am called a liar in public." Mrs. Tagore has also said in the same interview that Inshallah, Football "(is) a beautiful film and I want everyone to see it," but Kumar counters, "Let me speak plainly. I think you have been used to stamp a sense of 'reasonableness' on the sordid affair of restricting freedom of speech. The decisions of the body you head need to be, or need to be seen to be, more moral, more conservative, more risk-averse, more politically correct and more circumspect (thus, in common parlance, more anal-retentive) than is natural or necessary, even if basic principles of natural justice need to be given a go-by from time to time.". The same open letter also appears on Kumar's blog where it has attracted a fair share of attention by way of adverse comments not only concerning censorship but the Kashmir issue as well

No Fathers in Kashmir, previously Noor, is a story of hope and forgiveness told through the eyes of two teenagers experiencing first-love and heart break. It is a coming-of-age narrative of innocence and tenderness set in Kashmir . The screenplay of Noor was one of eight projects selected to Sundance Institute / Mumbai Mantra Lab 2014. The script was also awarded a development grant by Asia Pacific Screen Academy.

On 17 July 2013, The Doon School Confessions page on Facebook posted a link to a Pastebin page where there are links to stream or download the film online.

The Forest[2] was loosely based upon the writings and exploits of Jim Corbett and uses the tale of a man-eating leopard to address environmental concerns. The film is feature-length (86 minutes), and was released in theatres in India on 11 May 2012.

The idea of releasing Inshallah Kashmir online and free of charge was to take the film to the masses, and to make it accessible to as many people as possible – in Kashmir, within India and around the world. The full film went online on 26 January 2012, on the Indian Republic day and had over almost fifteen thousand hits that day. Since then, the film has been screened at festivals around the world.

Kumar himself an old boy of The Doon School was invited by The Doon School to create a film, subsequently named Dazed in Doon, that has since become controversial as the School authorities have moved to suppress the distribution of the film, on the grounds that it "doesn't give the School a good name". The film runs to 55 minutes and was made in just four months, from the start of pre-production on 20 June 2010 to the first screening on 23 October 2010.

The present controversy between Kumar and the School authorities has the School complaining that the film does not conform with a version alleged to have been shown to the Headmaster before its presentation at the School, and Kumar asserting that the School should have asked for changes at the time the script was being drafted in close consultation with the School's representative, Ratna Pathak Shah, over a period of six months, since January 2010. The script had been submitted and approved, and funding was approved before shooting commenced.

The film was originally shown to about 3,000 people who attended Doon's 75th Anniversary celebrations in October 2010.

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.

His second film, Little Terrorist (2005), was substantially more successful, winning an Oscar nomination, a nomination for the European Film Awards as well top prizes at the Tehran International Short Film Festival, Flanders International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Manhattan International Short Film Festival and the São Paulo International Short Film Festival. The film has been invited to over 120 film festivals around the world. This film was shot in the tight budget in the deserts of Rajasthan.

Ashvin Kumar is India's youngest Oscar-nominated and two-time national award-winning filmmaker, who has written, directed and produced a wide range of films, including India's only Oscar nominated short film Little Terrorist (2004), documentary Inshallah, Kashmir (2012) and Inshallah Football (2010); feature-length thriller The Forest (2012); coming-of-age tale Dazed in Doon (2010) and his debut film Road to Ladakh (2004) starring Irrfan Khan.

Kumar's first film was Road to Ladakh, which took 9 months to make, although the actual filming was done in 16 days. The film is 48 minutes long, and was released in 2004. Kumar has described this film as his "film school", referring to him dropping out of the London Film School and investing the course fees into the making of this film. Kumar learnt production and post production by immersing himself into various roles and learning the craft on-the-fly while putting his own film through the many stages of production. He describes it as a process of trial and error from which he emerged with a completed film. For starters, "Road to Ladakh was a disaster of a film shoot, we were lucky to get the film done" "Out of a ten-day shoot, it was raining on five days. So, we had to finish the shoot in half the time. There was just one petrol pump (in Spiti valley where the film was shot) – we had seven cars and two trucks and a cast and crew of 40 people (who were staying in camping tents that later got flooded) looking at me for directions at every step. There I was – my first film, in Ladakh, and I thought to myself – what the hell have I got myself into?" The experiences of this shoot are captured in the making-of documentary The Near Un-making of Road To Ladakh which accompanies the film on a DVD released for the first time in India in 2009 through Junglee Video (the DVD label of Times Music) in a double bill with Little Terrorist. The DVD also contains an entertaining and informative making-of documentary of Little Terrorist and is available at music and DVD shops all over India. Says the Mid-Day newspaper review "an elaborate tease that takes you into the minds of two lonely people who can scarce afford to trust each other. One's an enigma while the other snorts coke like it was a meal."

The film was based upon a real-life incident in the year 2000 where a young goatherd crossed the Indian-Pakistan border and was subsequently imprisoned by the Indian police. Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, freed the boy as a peace gesture intended to improve Indian-Pakistan relations.

Kumar's first documentary film, the National Award winner [3] Inshallah, football www.inshallahfootball.com, is a feature documentary about an aspiring footballer who was denied the right to travel abroad on the pretext that father was a militant in the 1990s. The film was completed in 2010, and has faced difficulties getting released in India. The film's first screening in India at the India Habitat Center received this review from Tehelka magazine, 'Kumar's camera catches the irony of Kashmir's physical beauty, the claustrophobia of militarisation, the dread and hopelessness of children born into war and the nuances of relationships. It also filters the inherent joie-de-vivre of youth, even if that flows uneasily with Kashmir's collective memory of unmitigated grief ... There is no better way to understand Kashmir right now.'. The film was shot by Kumar himself using five different camera formats "There is a rough, almost unpolished, feel to Inshallah, Football. The narrative runs unfettered, with an energy of its own." says Tehelka, "We shot with five different cameras, from DSLRs to the best equipment. The idea was to watch life unfold and get under the skin of the audience." adds Kumar.

Inshallah, Football is about 18-year-old Basharat Baba, known as "Basha". His father, Bashir, was a much-wanted leader of the armed group Hizbul Mujahideen. When he left his home in Kashmir to join the training camps in Pakistan in the early 1990s, his son Basharat was barely two months old.

The Magic of Cinema on the full display. The forest wildlife sequences is filmed by world-renowned Bedi Brothers, Naresh Bedi & Rajesh Bedi (First Indian to win Green Oscar in 1984 and only Indian to have won two BAFTA, British Academy of Film and Television Arts Nomination for two tigers films- Saving the Tigers & Man Eating Tiger), Additional Cinematographer & Sound is done by Naresh's twin son Vijay Bedi & Ajay Bedi (Youngest Indian to win Green Oscar in 2004 and only Indian to win Nomination for "Craft Category of Editing" at 28th Annual News and Documentary EMMY awards, New York, USA, 2007).