Sanyogita - The Bride in Red (2005)

Sanyogita, a young girl, is married into a family in Jaiselmer, Rajasthan. On the way to her in-laws house her newly wed husband, Ranbir Singh a rather violent man is arrested by the police. Sanyogita now arrives in her new home with a 'blemish'. Her mother-in-law has problems accepting her into the household. Besides the constant strife with her mother-in-law, Sanyogita has to face up to the loneliness in a very traditional patriarchal family where women of the house are allowed very little freedom and usually closed up in the 'womens' quarters'. It is in this setting that she makes a chance encounter with a nomadic blacksmith (gadiya lohar) Bheru. Sanyogita is unable to control her urges. Set in the bleak desert landscape of Rajasthan, the film tells the story of a young woman trying to escape from a violent, patriarchal setup in a very unusual manner - a raw almost documentary style which playfully adapts elements of Bollywood and the Westerns genre.