NYIFF 2026- Marriage Cops + Waai (short)

Marriage Cops

Director: Shashwati Talukdar, Cheryl Hess
Run time: 1 hour 18 minutes
Language: Hindi

Synopsis:

In a small city in northern India, unhappy couples seek solutions to their marriage troubles in the most unlikely of places–the local police station, where a group of hard-working women officers try to institute marital harmony using a combination of carrot and stick.

Shashwati Talukdar – Co-director/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 screened worldwide including at the Busan International Film Festival, the Kiasma Museum of Art in Helsinki, and the Whitney Biennial. Her films have been supported by the Asian Cinema Fund in Busan, the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Tribeca Foundation, and the India Foundation of 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 IFP (Gotham)/New York. She has an MFA in Film and Video Arts from Temple University, Philadelphia, and an MA in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She works as a director and editor between Taiwan and India.

Cheryl Hess – Co-director/Cinematographer – is an award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer from Philadelphia. Her short documentary SHE GOT BALLS! was a finalist in the If/Then Shorts (Northeast) pitch competition and was recently awarded the Best Director Prize (short) at the Atlanta Docufest. Her work has been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, The Knight Foundation, the 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. In 2022 she was co-DP on Ufuoma Essi’s experimental 16mm documentary IS MY LIVING IN VAIN? which was awarded a Silver Bear at the Chicago International Film Festival. To inspire other women who have very little presence in the online camera space, Cheryl recently started her own YouTube Channel called ANALOG GIRL where she discusses working with motion picture cameras and other related topics.

Waai

Director: Sainath S Uskaikar
Run time: 13 minutes
Language: Hindi

Synopsis:

Waai is a story of the last four Waai singers in India, belonging to a Muslim nomadic community from Kutch. The film celebrates this unique musical form while focusing on the community’s efforts to pass on the legacy to future generations.

Director: Sainath S. Uskaikar

Sainath S. Uskaikar is an Indian filmmaker from Goa known for his work in independent cinema, particularly in short films and documentaries rooted in regional culture and personal storytelling. Emerging from a new generation of filmmakers from India, his work often explores memory, relationships, identity, and the emotional landscapes of everyday life. Through intimate narratives and a strong sense of place, his films reflect both personal experience and broader social realities.

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Host or Publisher Indo-American Arts Council