Ashish Avinash Bende

Biography:

Ashish Avinash Bende is an Indian director, producer, writer, and film editor whose work revolves around the world of Marathi cinema and digital entertainment industry. In his career journey, he served as assistant director, working closely with famous filmmaker Paresh Mokashi on popular Marathi movies like Harishchandrachi Factory (2009), Elizabeth Ekadashi (2014), Chi Va Chi Sau Ka (2017), and Vaalvi (2023). The experiences of being behind the camera for several years helped him in developing his unique story-telling style based on realism, humour, and coming-of-age stories.

Bende debuted in the direction of his own feature film through critically acclaimed Marathi movie Aatmapamphlet (2023), which is an autobiographical coming-of-age story premiering at the Generation 14plus segment of 73rd Berlin International Film Festival. The film earned much critical appreciation and won several awards such as the Filmfare Award Marathi for Best Director and Maharashtra State Film Award for Best Debut Director. Further, Bende entered the world of OTT by directing SonyLIV’s crime thriller Manvat Murders (2024) based on the real-life case of one of Maharashtra’s most notorious crimes.