The Indian film showing the bride's 'humiliation' in arranged marriage

It is often said that marriages are made in heaven.

But in India, where a majority of marriages are arranged, the process of match-making can feel like a passage through hell for a woman and her family.

That's the premise of Sthal: A Match, the 2023 gritty Marathi-language film that has won several prestigious awards at festivals in India and abroad. It is releasing for the first time in theatres in India on Friday.

Set in rural Maharashtra state, the film centres around Savita, a young woman striving for an education and a career in a patriarchal society, and the attempts by her father Daulatrao Wandhare - a poor cotton farmer - to find a good husband for his daughter.

"He wants a good price for his crop and a good match for his daughter," says director Jayant Digambar Somalkar.

The film is notable for the unflinching way it portrays what its lead actress calls the "very humiliating" experience of many young women, unlike other Indian movies about arranged marriage.

Sthal has also grabbed attention as its entire cast is made up of first-time actors chosen from the village where it is shot. Nandini Chikte, who plays Savita, has already won two awards for her brilliant performance.

The film opens with a sequence where Savita is interviewing a prospective groom.

Along with her female relatives and friends, she watches as the young man serves them drinks from a tray. They laugh when he, visibly nervous, fumbles during questioning.

Rudely awakened from what turned out to be a dream, Savita is told to get ready as a group of men are coming to see her.

In reality, the gender roles are completely reversed, and in a scene that's replayed several times in the nearly two-hour film, Savita's humiliation comes into sharp focus.

The prospective groom and other men from his family are welcomed by Savita's father and male relatives. Guests are fed tea and snacks and once the introductions are done, Savita is called in.

Dressed in a sari, with eyes downcast, she sits down on a wooden stool facing her interrogators.

Questions come, thick and fast. What's your name? Full name? Mother's clan? Date of birth? Height? Education? Subject? Hobbies? Are you willing to work on the farm?

The men step out, to hold a discussion. "She's a bit dark. She had makeup on her face, but did you not see her elbow? That is her real colour," says one. "She's also short," he goes on to add. Others nod in agreement.

They leave, telling Daulatrao that they will respond in a few days to let him know their decision.

According to her parents, "this is the fourth or fifth time someone has come to see Savita" - all the earlier meetings have ended in rejection, leading to heartbreak and despair.

The scene rings true. In India, men often have a laundry list of attributes they want in their brides - a glance at the matrimonial columns in newspapers and match-making websites shows everyone wants tall, fair, beautiful brides.

Savita's protestations - "I don't want to get married, I first want to finish college and then take civil services exams and build a career" - carry no weight in her rural community, where marriage is presented as the only goal worth having for a young woman.

"Marriage is given far too much importance in our society," Chikte told the BBC. "Parents believe that once the daughter is married, they will become free of their responsibility. It's time to change that narrative."

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She says she found it "very humiliating" that Savita was made to sit on a stool to be judged by all those men who discussed her skin colour, while there was no discussion about the prospective groom.

"I was only acting, but as the film progressed, I lived Savita's journey and I felt angry on her behalf. I felt insulted and disrespected."

The film also tackles the social evil that is dowry - the practice of the bride's family gifting cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom's family.

Though it has been illegal for more than 60 years, dowries are still omnipresent in Indian weddings.

Parents of girls are known to take out huge loans or even sell their land and house to meet dowry demands. Even that doesn't necessarily ensure a happy life for a bride as tens of thousands are killed every year by the groom or his family for bringing in insufficient dowries.

In the film too, Daulatrao puts up a "for sale" sign on his land, even though farming is his only source of livelihood.

Director Somalkar says the idea for his debut feature film is rooted in his own experience.

Growing up with two sisters and five female cousins, he had witnessed the ritual far too many times when prospective grooms visited his home.

"As a child you don't question tradition," he says, adding that the turning point came in 2016 when he accompanied a male cousin to see a prospective bride.

"This was the first time I was on the other side. I felt a bit uncomfortable when the woman came out and sat on a stool and was asked questions. When we stepped out for a discussion, I felt the conversation about her height and skin colour was objectifying her."

When he discussed the issue with his fiancée at the time - who is now his wife - she encouraged him to explore it in his work.

In a country where 90% of all marriages are still arranged by families, Sthal is not the first to tackle the subject on screen. IMDB has a list of nearly 30 films about arranged marriage made by Bollywood and regional film industries just in the past two decades.

More recently, the wildly popular Netflix show Indian Matchmaking focused entirely on the process of finding the perfect partner.

But, as Somalkar points out, "weddings are hugely glamourised" on screen.

"When we think of weddings in India, we think of the big fat wedding full of fun and glamour. We think of Hum Aapke Hain Koun," he says, referring to the 1990s Bollywood blockbuster that celebrates Indian wedding traditions.

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"And the Netflix show only dealt with a certain class of people, the ones who are wealthy and educated and the women are able to exercise their choice.

"But the reality for a majority of Indians is very different and parents often have to go through hell to get their daughters married," he adds.

His reason for making Sthal, he says, is to "jolt society and audiences out of complacency.

"I want to start a debate and encourage people to think about a process that objectifies women who have very little freedom to choose between marriage and career," he says.

"I know one book or one film doesn't change society overnight, but it can be a start."

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