Abhaya Simha

Abhaya Simha is a two-time National Film Award-winning filmmaker. An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). In his career spanning over 15 years, he has directed four feature films (Gubbachigalu - 2008, Shikari - 2012, Sakkare - 2014 and Paddayi - 2018) and over 300 video films of various lengths on environmental issues and cultural heritage. Abhaya has also been visiting faculty at BITS Pilani, Manipal Media School and many other prestigious institutions. He has been a jury member for Filmfare 2015 for Kannada films. He represented young Indian filmmakers at the Berlin International Film Festival. His script Bhamini was selected for the NFDC Script lab. Another script, Paddayi was selected for the South Asian Script lab in Nepal. He was selected for the Junior Fellowship by the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training, Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Abhaya also headed the Kannada Cluster of VOOT, an OTT platform by Viacom18.