Asawari Jagushte is a Mumbai-based trans non-binary filmmaker, producer and interdisciplinary artist, and co-founder of Star Hopper Studio, an independent creative studio and production company. Their work moves across fiction, nonfiction, commercials, experimental cinema and immersive media, bringing together visual storytelling, creative experimentation and collaborations across disciplines.
Their work has also received recognition from GQ India, which featured Asawari alongside co-founder Varsha Panikar among its five young LGBTQIA+ changemakers in 2024, and The Established, which included them in its 2026 selection of nine queer filmmakers reshaping Indian cinema.
Moving between directing, producing and editing, Asawari is interested in the possibilities of storytelling across different forms, formats and contexts. Their approach combines a strong visual sensibility with an openness to experimentation, drawing on cinema, contemporary culture, emerging technologies and the creative perspectives of the people they work with. They are particularly interested in how ideas evolve through collaboration, and how different ways of thinking and making can produce unexpected narratives and experiences.
Alongside their creative practice, Asawari is engaged with questions of authorship, access and the wider conditions of cultural production. Through independent filmmaking, commercial productions, interdisciplinary projects and cultural programming, they explore ways of working that encourage artistic freedom, shared knowledge and equitable creative relationships.
A graduate of the London Film School and Kingston University, UK, Asawari served on the D&AD Direction Jury in 2021 and 2022. Their filmography includes The Housemaids, Bodies of Desire and After So Long / बरसों बाद, with work presented internationally through NOWNESS, BFI Flare, the British Council's Five Films for Freedom, Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, Outfest and other festivals and platforms.
Their wider body of work includes Project [29], an international multimedia initiative bringing together film, music and performance to engage with LGBTQI+ rights, and Disney Star's Words of Pride, an award-winning campaign recognised by The Drum Awards, Kyoorius, Spikes Asia and The One Show.
Asawari has collaborated with artists, communities and cultural organisations including the British Council, Goethe-Institut, Swiss Cultural Fonds and Serendipity Arts Festival. Their involvement with initiatives such as INCUBATOR, Intercut Labs and the Underground Film Observatory (UFO) reflects an interest in artistic exchange, experimentation and creating opportunities for independent creative practices.
Their recent work includes TENFA, a Kinnauri-language short film directed by Nihaarika Negi and developed in close collaboration with the Indigenous Kinnauri community in the Indian Himalayas. The film engages with ecological loss, ancestral knowledge and cultural memory. Their feature projects in post-production include Birds of a Feather, a narrative feature, and Mumbai Is Burning, a feature documentary.
Beyond film production, Asawari is developing THAAL, a land-based initiative on India's western coast bringing together ecology, food, art, hospitality and collaborative learning. Envisioned as a space for creative experimentation, residencies and exchange, the project extends their interest in building environments where different ideas, practices and communities can meet.
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