One of the more remarkable films I've seen this year is A Rifle and a Bag. A compelling, disarming documentary about a young Indian couple, "surrendered Naxalites", it is directed by three women filmmakers, Arya Rothe (India, from Pune, pronounced Ro-thay), Cristina Hanes (Romania) and Isabella Rinaldi (Italy). A creative documentary, it was at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this year, where it won a Jury Special Mention; at the Busan and Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festivals, and in the recent Dharamshala International Film Festival's superbly curated programme. The film, in Gondi, Madia, Marathi and Hindi, is produced by the NoCut Film Collective, which the directors founded, after doing the Doc Nomads Masters Course in Documentary Directing, in Europe.

We follow the lives of Somi and Sukhram, surrendered Naxalites, who are, of course, armed Maoist tribal groups, fighting for tribal rights against the Indian state. The Indian state sees them as the biggest threat to India's internal security, and under its surrender policy, Naxalites are granted pardon and incentives to desert the movement. By way of rehabilitation, the government has given the couple a small, remote plot of land for a house and small jobs. But their children can never get an education because the father is unable to produce a caste certificate (he cannot return to his home in Chhattisgarh for the certificate, for fear of being killed by those he betrayed), so the family is destined to forever remain on the margins. The Indian government knows it doesn't need guns to destroy the "enemy"—simple red tape will do the job, and far more efficiently.