
Self
Self

Somi is pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Together with her husband she prepares for this new phase of their parenthood. It means that their son has to go to school, but as an ex-Naxalite that is tough to achieve in contemporary India, where people like them are third-rate citizens. They lack the certificates and an opaque bureaucratic process doesn't help. Directors Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes and Arya Rothe of the NoCut Film Collective concentrate on Somi's close family ties, painting a portrait of ex-Naxalites in India. Once, Somi and her husband were communist rebels fighting for the rights of Indian tribes. However, to safeguard their family's welfare, they surrendered to the government in exchange for marginal compensation and simple accommodation.

"India" developed out of my three journeys to Pune in 2001, 2002 and 2004. I arrived in a forgein country, and felt surprisingly familiar in the foreign. There in the streets, walking among the people, surrounded by their movements, their gestures, by the colors, the light, the beauty. Small things awakened my attention, sometimes only a short glimpse, a hand movement, the color of a sari, a temple hidden in a courtyard. It was like a long hot bath that I took there in Pune's streets - something unique and very beautiful.
Though times have changed, Ram still uses old ways of farming due to a drought in the village. His brother, Bala, goes to Bombay to earn his living. Mahadev, a Zamindar in the village, eyes Usha, the lover of Bala. Due to the drought, the crops fail in the village, and Shikh Sahib, a social worker, comes to help the farmers, and shows them new ways of farming. Ramu goes to Bombay to take a loan for cooperative farming and asks Bala to turn back to the village, but he refuses. [The film is a socio-economic study of post-independence India, blending documentary elements with narrative storytelling. The film is often described as a "simple story woven into the documentary design" and features actors like Prithviraj Kapoor and Dev Anand.]