Abhishek Jain

Kevi Rite Jaish is a satire about Patels chasing the American motel dream, and it is the film English Wikipedia credits with the revival of Gujarati cinema. Jain had come back from Whistling Woods and assistant jobs on Saawariya and Yuvvraaj, approached Anurag Kashyap to produce it, and got a no. His brother Nayan produced it instead.

The production tells you what kind of director he is. Thirty four locations in Ahmedabad, twenty three shooting days, and the first time a RED camera was used in India on a regional film. One party sequence needed five hundred empty liquor bottles in a state under prohibition, so the art department spent eight days scavenging and turned up 731 of them, moved at night to avoid police attention. That is not an anecdote about a film. That is a man building an industry with a torch and a shopping bag.

Bey Yaar followed on 29 August 2014, a caper about two friends, a tea stall and a painting by an artist modelled on M. F. Husain. Jain drew it from a real Ahmedabad tea stall whose owner was gifted a Husain canvas and never sold it. He co-wrote with Bhavesh Mandalia, hired Sachin and Jigar for the music, cast Pratik Gandhi and Divyang Thakkar, and used ten assistant directors so he could spend his own attention on the actors.

It ran fifty weeks and became the first Gujarati film hosted by the New York Indian Film Festival. Kevi Rite Jaish proved a Gujarati film could be made. Bey Yaar proved it could stay open, travel, and be worth a distributor's time. Those are two different arguments and the second one is the one producers cared about.

CineMan Productions was founded in 2010, before either film, by Jain, Mikhil Musale and Anish Shah, who met at an international film festival in Ahmedabad. In February 2016 Jain announced that CineMan would co-produce three Gujarati films with Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films, which is how the man who once said no to Kevi Rite Jaish ended up on the poster. The first of those was Wrong Side Raju, directed by Musale, which won the National Award that year.

In May 2021 CineMan and Khushi Advertising launched OHO Gujarati, the first streaming platform built for the language. Jain directed its opening original himself, Vitthal Teedi, with Pratik Gandhi in the title role. The platform did not thrive. ShemarooMe acquired its content library in 2026. He had been right about the demand and early about the format, which is the most expensive way to be right.

Maaran is a thriller about two women, a trafficking survivor and a woman heading the same way, drawn into the path of a predator. Jain directed it with Yash Soni, Deeksha Joshi, Shruhad Goswami, Tarjanee Bhadla, Dhairya Thakkar and Abhinay Banker. It also took Best Feature Film from the jury at the 15th Chicago South Asian Film Festival.

The 72nd National Film Awards were announced on 18 July 2026 and judged films certified during 2024. Maaran won Best Feature Film in Gujarati. Its teaser went out on 23 July 2026, its trailer on 25 July, and its release date was announced at an Ahmedabad event by the Chief Minister of Gujarat. It opened in cinemas on 31 July 2026, thirteen days after it had already won. Fourteen years after he restarted this industry, the first National Award with his name on it as director belonged to a film the audience had not been allowed to see yet.