Lakshmi

The film starts from something that actually happened. Lakshmi, thirteen years old, is abducted, sold and forced into prostitution. She is beaten where she is held, and stays standing through the solidarity of the other women and her own refusal to give in. She is freed in a police raid. After that the harder part begins: threats, pressure and offers of money. Lakshmi takes none of it and gives evidence in court. In a case treated as a landmark in India, the traffickers are convicted. The account does not lay out what was done to her; it puts the girl’s decision at the centre. Monali Thakur, Satish Kaushik and Shefali Shah appear in Nagesh Kukunoor’s hundred and fifteen minute Indian film, completed in 2014.