Academic Qualification: Post Graduate Diploma in Direction from FTII, Pune.

Industry experience: Ashoke Viswanathan is a multiple National and International award winning filmmaker with more than a hundred films to his credit apart from TV serials, music videos and several educational series.He has been awarded the President’s Gold Medal as also the President’s Silver Medal for his feature film work.His films have been selected on five occasions in the Indian Panorama section of the International Film Festival of India apart from several international film festivals.. He is also a playwright, theatre director and actor with performances all over the globe. A prolific essayist and writer, he has published articles and papers in several journals, magazines and daily newspapers like THE WEEK, THE TIMES OF INDIA, THE TELEGRAPH, THE STATESMAN and ANANDA BAZAR PATRIKA. Viswanathan is also a poet with contributions to several anthologies like THE LONDON MISCELLANY and has authored a book entitled, BENGAL IN THE CENTENARY OF CINEMA AND BEYOND.

He has been a Charles Wallace scholar, having qualified as a Fellow at the Cambridge seminar on modern British fiction.He was the HOD of film direction at the SRFTI in the nineties and is, at present, a Professor and HOD of Producing films and television at SRFTI where he was once a member of the Governing Council. He is on the BOARD OF STUDIES at West Bengal State University, department of film studies, and at St. Xavier’s College in the department of Mass Communications.He is also political commentator on news channels like TIMES NOW and ABP ANANDA