Dr Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram

Dr Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram is Reader in Global Cinemas at Queen Mary University of London. He is author of India's New Independent Cinema: Rise of the Hybrid (Routledge, 2016), Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood: The New Independent Cinema Revolution (Routledge, 2018) and Indian Indies: A Guide to New Independent Indian Cinema (with a foreword by Shabana Azmi) (Routledge, 2022) - the world's first books on new Indian Indie films, establishing a distinct research area in Indian cinema studies. Ashvin is Associate Director of the UK Asian Film Festival (UKAFF) and has directed the UK Heritage Lottery-funded documentary Movies, Memories, Magic (2018). He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded research project ‘Connecting Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage: India-UK Film Festival Federation, Youth Curation and Community Co-Creation’ (2024-27).  Ashvin is currently co-editing the anthology Urban Violence and Marginalised Communities: Multidisciplinary Interpretations (to be published by UCL Press in 2025).