Free Admission
Join us for a free screening of Marriage Cops on Nov. 5, where we will also host a Q&A with directors Shashwati Talukdar (via Zoom) and Cheryl Hess (in-person). The discussion will be moderated by TFTV Professor and co-editor of the film, Jacob Bricca, ACE.
Within the bustling corridors of a Dehradun police station, a remarkable form of justice unfolds as Officer Sandhya and her all-woman team mediate troubled marriages in northern India. This intimate observational documentary follows three couples whose stories range from everyday domestic conflicts to harrowing cases of violence and neglect, offering a window onto the evolving landscape of gender relations in contemporary Indian society. The film captures the raw emotional intensity of these confrontations as well as the warmth and camaraderie among the officers during lunch breaks and quiet moments between cases. As the women navigate their dual roles as enforcers and counsellors, we witness a unique institution that serves as a critical lifeline for women who have few other avenues for support. Through its balanced portrayal of moments both heartbreaking and humorous, Marriage Cops illuminates a powerful intersection where traditional marriage values collide with emerging concepts of women’s rights.
Shashwati Talukdar (Director, Producer, Lead Editor) was born and raised in India. ‘Marriage Cops’ is her second documentary feature. She started her professional life in New York City, as an assistant editor for Michael Moore. Subsequently she worked on projects for HBO, BBC, Lifetime, Sundance and Cablevision in New York. Her films have been screened worldwide including Busan, the Kiasma Museum of Art, Helsinki, and the Whitney Biennial. She has been supported by the Asian Network of Documentary in Busan, Tribeca Film Institute, the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, India Foundation for the Arts, among others. She has received the James Yee Mentorship award from the Center for Asian American Media and the Project Involve Fellowship from Film Independent, New York. Shashwati has published essays about documentary film, mural paintings of Garhwal, and colonial picture postcards among others. In the last few years she has written and directed several short plays in Taipei, where she has been working on a cycle of surreal plays about the vagaries of historical memory. Shashwati has taught at NYU, Arcadia and Temple University. She lives between the US, Taiwan and India. To learn more go to http://shashwati.com
Cheryl Hess (Director, Producer, Cinematographer) Cheryl is an award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer from Philadelphia. Her work has screened at festivals such as Aspen Shortsfest, the Tribeca Film Festival, Sonoma International Film Festival and many others. Cheryl is a recipient of a prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts and her work has been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, the Knight Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Asian Network of Documentary. In 2018 Cheryl won the grand prize in the AIA Film Challenge for a short documentary she directed, shot, and edited in just 16 days. That same year she was a finalist in the Tribeca If/Then Shorts Northeast competition with her latest short ‘She Got Balls!’ which was recently awarded the Best Director (Short) prize at the Atlanta Docufest. Cheryl has a long background in shooting film and recently started her own YouTube channel called “Analog Girl’ in order to make women more visible in the online camera/tech space. She received her MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University.
