Projects
People
2011
Description
............................
Fields
Enlighten
  • Pranav Ashar
    Founder Chairman and CEO

    Pranav founded Enlighten in November 2006. He is responsible for day to day operations, product strategy and overall direction of the organisation. He attended the Master's program in philosophy at the Unversity of Mumbai which he left during the final year to focus on Enlighten's growth. Pranav was awarded the British Council's Young Creative Entrepreneur of the year 2011 -2012.

    He is currently obsessed with Plato, litchi, Kubrick, books which have 40 ideas per page, gripping films, really slow films, Dylan, Rahaman, relation between form and substance, self, philosopher king, thinking quietly, thinking aloud, silencing thought, finding first class ways to solve problems, OCD, free will, fair dealings, Gandhi, Van Gogh, precision in design, opensource, Google, common sense, excellence, interface, geometry, comparative history, justice, Rumi, bohemian ways, abundance, the present, metaphysics, symbolic logic, J Krishnamurthi, absolutism and nothingness.
  • Board of Directors
  • Kamal Gianchandani
    Member of the Board of Directors 

    Kamal is one of the film industries most respected leaders and ispresident of one of India’s major players, PVR Pictures, which is thedistribution and production arm of the PVR group. Prior to this rolehe was COO of BigFlix and Film Distribution for Reliance.

  • Raj Yerasi
    Member of the Board of Directors

    Raj has a broad range of financial experience in both the US andemerging markets. He has worked as an investment banker andinvestment analyst, and has expertise in the fundamentals ofdifferent businesses in the US and India. He has invested in listedand private companies and helped run one of those privatecompanies during its critical growth phase. He was vice presidentof Sandstone Capital and most recently Executive Director at AIOCDAWACS. Raj is a graduate of Harvard University with a bachelor’sdegree in Applied Mathematics and Economics.
  • Digital
  • Jigar Upadhyay 
    Director, Marketing - Cineoo.com

    Jigar comes from a technical background and has 4 years of experience in the media industry with a sound knowledge in Ecommerce and Digital Marketing.

    A computer Engineer by qualification Jigar started his stint with Tech Mahindra. Unsatisfied with the IT industry within a short span of 18 months, he then decided to join Enlighten, one of the hottest startups with a vision to become the biggest Arts and Media company in the world. He then was among the core team members of online ticketing portal ticketplease.com where he helped set up the entire operations and tie-ups with multiplexes. In addition to this he has handled online marketing for a few Bollywood films and has a vivacious appetite to grow his expertise in the digital media and film industries. Otherwise he loves to watch movies and is a hardcore football fan.

    Jigar is now responsible for all the marketing activities of Enlighten and is currently working on Enlighten's new venture Cineoo.com.
  • Malcolm Pope
    Head, Acquisitions- Cineoo.com

    Malcolm swapped the calm and verdant surrounds of Henley-on-Thames, England (see the rowing scene from The Social Network) for the hysterical buzz of the streets of Bombay in 2007, as part of the AIESEC graduate placement programme, to work for Subhash Ghai’s film school, Whistling Woods. Four years later, Malcolm is still in Bombay having picked up an MBA and an enthusiasm for the particulars of the business side of the Indian and international film industries. Malcolm had originally become a member of Enlighten in 2007 and is pleased to have now joined the team on a professional level, managing acquisitions for Enlighten's new VOD platform, Cineoo.com. Apart from working Malcolm still tries to do a bit of DJing and can be occasionally found playing electronica in various nightspots around the country.
  • Retail
  • Vivek Gawade
    Director, Retail Sales

    Vivek has been an integral part of Enlighten since its inception. His love and passion for films instigated his decision to change path and join Enlighten after graduating in Information Technology from Mumbai University. He has been the driving force in creating the Enlighten home library, and has a larger vision to create a strong network for promoting film literature, independent cinema and art. Vivek is a music enthusiast and when not listening to the likes of Bob Dylan or AR Rahman he enjoys creating his own melodies on his much loved guitar. He also enjoys posing for photos, pretending he is Shah Rukh Khan.
  • Aranyalay Chinchpure
      
    Aranyalay began his education in art after drawing a picture of Mickey Mouse in class VII. After 8 years of professional experience, he is now continuing this fusion of art and cinema with the designs Aranyalay creates for Enlighten. His philosophy is to combine the machine like qualities of consistency, perfection and speed with the more human tropes of imagination, innovation and variation.
  • Society
  • Devdutt Trivedi
    Film Festival Curator

    Devdutt is a graduate student in the VIsual and Critical Studies (VCS) program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.He has worked as curator at Enlighten Film Society's monthly festivals and taught film criticism at university level in Mumbai. He is currently developing his ideas on film through Anandvardhan's Dhwanyaloka and the texts of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
  • Workroom
  • Ashwin Ashar
    Chief Accounts Officer

    Ashwin (B.Com, ICWA(Inter)) oversees all things financial for Enlighten and has a wealth of over 25 years experience, having run his own accounting consultancy, which has managed the accounting for a number of varied large companies across industries from textiles to media. He is also a consistent source of wisdom in all aspects of the organisation.
  • Sohel Pandorwala
    Lead, Video Operations

    Sohel has a passion for technology and specific expertise in video, with an inexhaustible hunger to explore new techniques and possibilities. With the requirement to get a degree, Sohel went through the motions of the commerce programme at Mumbai University before starting his preferred course in life by obtaining a diploma in Digital Media and advanced video compositing from XIC. Since then he has worked on various digital media design projects, as well as with the Reliance Media Works behemoth in 3D conversion. Sohel landed in the liberated surrounds of Enlighten in May 2011 to manage the technical operations for Enlighten.
  • Tarjani Bhatt
    Manager, Publishing Division

    Tarjani is a writer with Enlighten Publishing House and is currently in the middle of writing a food title for the house. Besides this, she is a food enthusiast and also maintains her witter up and food blog.