Director

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari is one of Bollywood's most refreshingly grounded storytellers, and her journey to the director's chair is pretty inspiring. After spending years crafting narratives in the advertising world as Executive Creative Director at Leo Burnett, she made her film debut with Nil Battey Sannata in 2016—a gem of a film that instantly established her as someone who gets human stories. That success led to back-to-back wins: Bareilly Ki Barfi became a massive hit and earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Director, and Panga proved she could balance humor, heart, and real-life struggles without breaking a sweat. She's carved out a space for herself as a director who genuinely cares about character-driven narratives. What makes Tiwari's work stand out is her ability to find profound beauty in ordinary lives—her films celebrate everyday women with wit and warmth rather than melodrama. She writes her own stories too, giving them an intimate, personal touch that feels authentic. Whether it's a struggling mother fighting for her daughter's education or a woman finding her athletic dreams later in life, her characters feel lived-in and relatable. Her recent work on the Break Point web series showed she's equally comfortable in the digital space, bringing the same storytelling finesse to streaming platforms. Tiwari has quietly but steadily become one of the directors redefining what Hindi cinema can say about modern India.