Part of First Look 20/21
Sunday, August 1, 2021, 5:30 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Bartos Screening Room

Dir. NoCut Film Collective: Cristina Haneș, Isabella Rinaldi, Arya Rothe. India, Romania, Italy, Qatar. 2020, 89 mins. In Gondi, Madiya, Hindi with English subtitles. On the outskirts of the jungle, the precarious existence of a young family of ex-revolutionaries, pardoned and resettled under a government surrender policy for Naxalites (Maoists), reveals itself gradually, by day and night, in everyday scenes captured at a rigorously maintained and patiently held distance. Refusing to conceal the limits of observational cinema in the face of invisible structures of oppression, the NoCut Film Collective offers no commentary on the image, no expository interviews or rhetorical interventions. Rather, placing pointed emphasis on setting and situation over action, they abide silently by their subjects Somi, her husband Sukhram, and their children, as they endure coerced changes of status, security, and selfhood. Bright Future Award Honourable Mention at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020. US theatrical premiere