Episode 02: A Rifle and a Bag with NoCut Film Collective
In this episode, we feature a conversation with three filmmakers, Isabella Rinaldi from Italy, Cristina Hanes from Romania, and Arya Rothe from India, who make up the NoCut Film Collective they founded in 2016.
Their debut feature-length documentary, A Rifle and a Bag (2020), premiered earlier this year at the International Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR) in the Bright Future Competition section, where it was awarded a Special Mention from the jury.
The film is a beautiful feat in observational cinema, quietly documenting Somi, a young mother pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Once, Somi and her husband were Naxalites, 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. Their young son has reached the age to enroll in school, but as reformed Naxalites, the process of enrolling him in school is obfuscated with an opaque bureaucratic process and incessant questioning about their past. With stunning cinematography and intimate family scenes by a campfire, directors Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes, and Arya Rothe of the NoCut Film Collective bring us close into the crevices of revolutionaries splintered from their revolution and contemporary Indian society.
Eka Tsotsoria, a filmmaker and contributor of Docs in Orbit, caught up with Cristina, Isabella, and Arya to discuss the many resonances of this film and their transnational and collaborative filmmaking process. At the end of the episode, we also feature a special track courtesy of Vandana from her studio in Brooklyn.
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ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
ARYA ROTHE
Arya is an independent filmmaker based in Pune, India. She graduated in 2016 from DocNomads. Before DocNomads, she studied at FAMU - National Film School of the Czech Republic. Her short film "Daughter's Mother" had its world premiere at the 61st DOKLeipzig Film Festival in 2018.
CRISTINA HANES
Cristina is a Romanian filmmaker based in Oradea, Romania. Her film "António and Catarina" won the Pardino D'oro Award for Best International Short at Locarno Festival in 2017. The film was screened in over 20 film festivals around the world. She is an alumna of DocNomads and Aristoteles Workshop. She completed her BA in Cinematography in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
ISABELLA RINALDI
Isabella is an independent filmmaker based in Rome, Italy. She graduated DocNomads after getting her BA in Film Studies at Sapienza University in Rome.
FILM DETAILS: A Rifle and a Bag , Arya Rothe, Cristina Hanes, Isabella Rinaldi, - India 1h 30m
Logline A young Indian couple of surrendered Naxalites is fighting for their children's future.
PRODUCTION COMPANY: NoCut FIlm Collective
Co-production countries India, Romania, Italy, Qatar
PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS / AWARDS
World Premiere International Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR), Bright Future Competition 2020, Awarded with Special Mention of the Jury. - more info here
Visions du Réel 2020 - Latitudes section, Swiss Premiere
First Look 2020 @ Museum of Moving Image, U.S. Premiere
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2020 - Open Horizons section, Greek Premiere
One World Romania Film Festival, Living on the Edge section, Romanian Premiere
Supported by Doha Film Institute (Qatar), IDFA Bertha Fund Classic (Netherlands), Asian Cinema Fund (South Korea), AlterCine Foundation (Canada)
INCUBATED AND DEVELOPED AT
ParisDoc Work-in-progress 2019 / Cinema du Reel, France
Agora Docs in Progress 2019 / Thessaloniki Documentary Festival,Greece
DocEdge 2018 / Asian Forum for Documentary, India / Winners of IDFA Award and Best Emerging Filmmakers
IDFAcademy 2018 / International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands
EURODOC 2018 / local workshop for Italian producers, Italy
Docs Port Incheon 2018 / Asian Documentary Project Market, South Korea
fARAD 2017 / Workshop for development and sound, Romania
ABOUT
Created in the east of India before spreading across different states, the Naxalites have been fighting since the 1960s for the rights of “Adivasis (tribal communities) and to a lesser extent for the “Dalits” (the low caste), both representing a quarter of the Indian population and living in extreme poverty. For New Delhi, they represent the biggest threat to the State’s security, averted through a “pardon” policy, in exchange for their surrender. Somi is expecting a new child. Along with her husband, she has put down her rifle to live in a camp with other reformed fighters, and to offer their eldest, Dadu, the education they never had. Arya Rothe, Isabella Rinaldi and Cristina Hanes filmed in immersion over a long period their condition of ex-combatants as the spouses find themselves in an almost inextricable situation. The governmental “pardon” is limited to the incessant questioning of a past with which they are trying to break, further complicated by red tape. A Rifle and a Bag subtly shows the mechanisms of a hard-to-find reinsertion within a rigid social organisation, which is effectively holding Somi and her family as hostages. – Emmanuel Chicon