Coffee Films contributors; Ashwini Malik

Ashwini Malik
Producer/Director/Writer

Ashwini was born in Agra (where the Taj Mahal is), India, but spent his early years moving around most of North India with his sister and mum, following his dad's career as an engineer with the government; a life of constantly changing schools (including a stint boarding), surroundings and friends. Ashwini spent plenty of time reading Alistair Maclean novels and soaking up Bollywood movies starring Amitabh Bachchan, he was shy and a little complex, average at his schooling, generally liked but quickly forgotten, though a pretty decent cricketer; your average, ordinary, small town Indian kid. He finished his last and longest phase of schooling (6 years) in Dehradun, North India, undecided about his career and painfully shy;

"I was far too shy for girlfriends especially in such a repressed small town, and very rarely got drunk, but my friends and I went out all the time, just doing harmless things like; driving around, walking around, drinking coffee, eating pizza. I did enjoy an occasional drink with my father throughout my childhood; I'm extremely close to my parents and sister, my family is very special to me."

His interest in films was still limited to what little there was access to; Bollywood and the occasional Hollywood, but his reading interests were gaining momentum and spreading their wings with Orwell classics like 1984 and Animal Farm, as well as taking a fancy to Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (despite finding it "rather silly" on re-reading it years later).

Dad Malik had shifted the family to Delhi having retired from Government service and gone into business for himself. Determined not to be an engineer or a doctor (the conventional career choices), Ashwini used his new location and interest of the written word to study English literature at college in Delhi University, and suddenly found himself in his element; studying Homer and TS Elliot (both of which he loved), Beckett and Hemingway (both of which he hated), he was outspoken about his views on literary giants and got great grades for it. College also made for better social interaction; the small town Indian kid got into getting drunk with a wide circle of friends, and finally got into films;

"During this time I really discovered my interest in cinema, I think it was following a viewing of Vertigo, but The Graduate also had an effect, and from there my interest continued to grow until I was watching a film a day on my VCR, almost everything that came out of Hollywood; I got really impatient with European cinema at that time, even sleeping through Tarkovsky's Sacrifice at a film festival!"

Despite the increased interest it still didn't seem much of a career option, he toyed with the idea of teaching literature at university, and when graduation came around he went to work for his father's export company. Then luck played a hand and Ashwini spotted an advert for admissions into the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India, he applied and to his amazement was accepted and saw his life change completely; discovering European cinema and it's great film makers; Bergman, Bunuel, Tarkovsky and Antonioni, and perhaps more importantly falling in love with Irene, a senior film editing student, whom he is now married to and has a daughter, Trisha, with.

On graduation he shot a short film The Waiter in Slow Motion which was heavily influenced by Breathless, and Ashwini's theory at the time on scripts; more than one draft makes the film lose it's edge! The film got into the Clermont Ferrand Festival in 1995 and was well enough received to make him determined to return with a new short as soon as possible; unfortunately, due to the pressures of living, as soon as possible has yet to arrive.

He moved to Bombay with the priority of making a living, disliking the Bollywood style of film making left him little choice other than to work as a freelancer in the booming market of TV; directing non fiction things at first then moving onto one hour thrillers. Finally one day, almost eight years after leaving film school, he decided to make a self funded feature film, Clever and Lonely. Shot on DV working with talent he met through television, the plan was to attract enough attention to get closer to making a living from films, and hopefully to get the film transferred to 35mm and some kind of release, this was also where Coffee Films came onboard when Ashwini asked us to help him promoting the film to festivals and organisations in the UK.

Described by the Birmingham Film and TV Festival as "the arrival of a genuine talent", and effectively crediting Ashwini with rescuing the independent Indian film industry, Clever and Lonely enjoyed a play at several festivals around the world, and it's leading lady Nilanjana picked up a best actress award; so it certainly didn't entirely fail in it's aims, but the search for 35mm transfer funding still goes on.

Ashwini currently lives in Bombay with his wife and daughter, close to his parents that he sees most days, and just a daily phone call away from his sister in Cleveland, Ohio. In spite of his increasing cynicism towards the industry he is still working hard at being a film maker; he's currently writing for a full on Bollywood Hindi language feature film which is soon to start shooting in India, and is developing a massive feature project with Coffee Films planned for production in the near future;

"I am chipping away, not letting this turn into a hobby! I will keep making films, and refuse to go away!"

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