Ashay Javadekar

Best known for his impeccable dramatic storytelling, award winning writer-director Ashay Javadekar was born on May 17, 1984 in India. Over the course of 10 years of filmmaking, Ashay has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the path-breaking films in world cinema, often featuring first time actors and employing a mix of Marathi and English in his films. In his childhood, Ashay was fascinated by projectors. His mother was as ophthalmologist and he used to use various lenses procured from her to make several DIY slide and film projectors. His father, although a gynecologist, directed several award winning plays. Ashay also performed as a magician over several years, with his father and mother as his assistants, doing a tour of over 50 stages shows in various cities like Mumbai, Pune. Ashay's first feature film was Shank's (2017) (2017), which he made with a point and shoot camera and an iPhone. A kind of a social experiment, the film tells a story of fictional Marathi Indian chef that goes against all odds to open a restaurant of a lesser known Marathi cuisine outside India, and popularizes it with the help of his French wife. The film gained immense popularity over social media and still fetching rave reviews online. An ensemble of Marathi and American cast from the US, the film was one of a kind employing a multi-cultural cast. In 2019, Ashay directed his second feature film, DNA (2019) (2019) which went on to win several international awards. The film tells the story of a woman with a genetic disease, decides to undergo a biological experiment to produce a healthy baby with her DNA. The film featured a cast of first time film actors, from various states in the US. Almost the entire cast and crew had different day jobs, and and everyone took days off from their work to make the film a reality. The film went on to win 14 international awards in Los Angeles, New York and Europe. Ashay won Best Director as European Independent Film Awards. Ashay is working on a science fiction project, which is an adaptation of a best selling Marathi science fiction novel. Ashay is a PhD in Chemical Engineering by training. He resides in Bay Area, California, and has his own production company, Not Just Entertainment.