Avinaash Jumani began PictureWorks in 2010, with the vision of bringing the best of world cinema to India, by acquiring them at film festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Los Angeles, and Toronto, to, then, distributing those films back in India.
The first film PictureWorks brought to India was The Lincoln Lawyer (2011). “Back then, we used to have 35 mm prints that used to be shipped to cinemas to be watched. Things have changed with digital technology,” Jumani tells THR India. Over the years, PictureWorks brought The Iron Lady (2011), A Separation (2011), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Lion (2016)—their most successful release—Anatomy of a Fall (2023), Flow (2024), which won Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, and, last year, the Oscar-nominated The Secret Agent (2025).
Today, PictureWorks releases over 120 films a year in India. The process of acquiring films is long-drawn, often bearing fruit years after Jumani places his bid. “When I acquired The Secret Agent, for example, I just had the title and a two-line synopsis. I didn’t even read the script at that time. It was around 2022. They hadn’t begun shooting and were about to close the actor Wagner Moura.” Jumani even acquired Flow in Cannes after watching merely fifteen minutes of it, a year before it won the Oscars.
Jumani acquires a lot of films in the script stage itself, or when films are about to hit the floor. “If we wait for the film to complete, we really don’t get it, and someone else would have picked it up, and then you get what is left over. I am generally not looking for leftovers,” Jumani notes.
It is a gamble, waiting years for the final film he bet on, to see if it stands up to its initial promise. “It is a long process. Besides, in Hollywood, lots of films don’t eventually get made. They announce 200 movies, but only 100 plus movies get made.”
Jumani is at Cannes 2026 where he is announcing PictureWorks’ first ever Indian slate. He is no stranger to Cannes, “the best film festival in the world”, and has been going since he founded PictureWorks. “This year, it looks to be a busy market. We have had over 200 scripts come in in the last few weeks. As always, it is a struggle of who gets what when the bidding starts.”
PictureWorks will be distributing a Kannada-language feature film House of Manikanta, whose IP rights Jumani picked up at Film Bazaar in Goa. They just received the CBFC certificate, and the film is ready for release. Like the international films, this film, too, will hit the major metro cities, though it will be more Karnataka-focused. Once the theatrical run is done, the film will be dubbed in other languages (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu) for its digital release.
Understandably, censorship is a thorn in his side. “I really don’t understand why everything needs to be edited, deleted. After censorship everything looks abrupt. They should just rate the movies with more censorship rating options, and that is about it.”
PictureWorks is also expanding beyond distribution, into production, with a new production company Studio PictureWorks. “We are already working towards producing a Hindi film, a remake of a French film, and currently it is being re-written. That will be Production No. 1.”
Jumani is also gearing up for the release of The Death of Robin Hood (2026) and I Swear (2025), which won two BAFTAs—for best leading actor and best casting. A healthy mix of award-winning films and commercial darlings, Jumani is clear about his vision: "The genre can be anything, but cinema has to be good.”