Inside a cramped women’s police station in northern India, a small unit of female officers mediates domestic disputes ranging from emotional abandonment to physical abuse. Paper files spill across desks and stairwells, forming a living archive of trauma, tradition, and bureaucratic delay — all under the watchful gaze of the state.
Filmed over three months in Uttarakhand, Marriage Cops documents a fragile, informal justice system where law, care, and contradiction coexist. The officers are both agents of the state and stewards of survival, negotiating patriarchy from within its own walls. Mediation is inconsistent and improvisational, but for many women, it’s the only available form of recourse. Co-directed by Cheryl Hess and Shashwati Talukdar, this observational documentary resists easy judgment, instead offering a layered, quietly radical portrait of public service — where overburdened officers meet suffering with empathy, and where moments of grace flicker amidst institutional fatigue.
India/USA
2025
In Hindi with English subtitles
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Credits & Director
Producer
Diana Chiawen Lee
Cinematography
Cheryl Hess
Editor
Shashwati Talukdar, Jacob Bricca
Original Music
Alban Bailly
Shashwati Talukdar
Shashwati Talukdar works as a director and editor in Taiwan and India. Her professional career began in New York City as an assistant editor to Michael Moore, and she has worked on projects for HBO, BBC, Lifetime, Sundance, and Cablevision. Her films have screened internationally at the Busan International Film Festival, Kiasma Museum of Art in Helsinki, and Whitney Biennial, and have received support from the Asian Cinema Fund in Busan, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Tribeca Foundation, and India Foundation of the Arts, among others.
Cheryl Hess
Cheryl Hess is an award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer from Philadelphia. Her work has been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, Knight Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and many others. In 2018, Cheryl won the grand prize in the AIA Film Challenge for Past/Presence: Saving the Spring Garden School, a short she directed, shot, and edited. To inspire more women who may have little presence in the online camera space, Cheryl recently launched her own YouTube Channel, Analog Girl, where she discusses working with motion picture cameras and related topics.
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Image: © The New York Times