18 February,2026 08:28 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from the dram Assi, starring Taapsee Pannu
The defense lawyer looks away. As if he saw a ghost. So could the audience (they won't).
This snapshot's also in the trailer of the absolutely absorbing, Assi (opens in theatres this Friday), by director Anubhav Sinha, who admits to me, he "drifted from norms of legal proceedings" for that scene.
The point gets swiftly made. It's not the survivor, who should be hiding their head in shame; no?
That face belongs to the aptly cast, Kani Kusruti (All We Imagine As Light), who has such an everywoman quality about her. Yet, it's impossible look away, when she's onscreen, whether or not behind a veil.
Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha
She plays a schoolteacher. In the urban jungle of Delhi's dark alleys, claustrophobic cubbyholes, a bunch of beasts hunting in a Toyota SUV, prey on her, and push her off, like dead meat, once done.
It's a briefly brutal sequence. The film follows the aftermath of this rape.
What strikes you about Assi is it isn't a film hiding behind needless subtleties and ironies, or even going extra to look/sound clever.
Sinha shows it as he sees it. He unflinchingly underlines his purpose. Which is what makes it so powerfully mainstream.
"It's straight from the heart. The skill was in the editing to ensure [the narrative] remains relentlessly engaging. Are there dull moments?" Sinha asks. Hell, no!
He co-wrote the script with Gaurav Solanki (Article 15). But a collab hardly written about is between the director, and his DoP.
As in the Irish-origin, Bristol-bred cinematographer from New York, Ewan Mulligan, who's shot Assi. As he did Sinha's IC 184 (2024), Anek (2022), Article 15 (2019), Mulk (2018).
There's much to be moved by Mulligan's camera, as a character itself, that flits between close-ups in the courtroom, captures vast starkness of the nation's capital; indeed, few rare shots too, such as the Delhi Metro tracks from the driver's seatâ¦
Sinha found Mulligan through his line-producer in Scotland, while looking for a local cinematographer for Tum Bin 2 (2016).
He recalls, "[Mulligan] was [simply] doing a job then. He's a very political mind. And knows more India now than most Indians! We really became collaborators with Mulk."
Before which, Sinha himself was a very different kinda filmmaker (Ra.One, Cash, Dus).
Like Mulk (on religious segregation), Assi, also starring Taapsee Pannu as lawyer, is primarily a courtroom drama - although it plays out more like a Kafkaesque police/legal procedural, for a pulsating thriller.
In order to truly feel the story, Sinha confesses, he had to genuinely think like a woman, first.
Pannu has to do no such thing. Her breathless pauses say it all in the courtroom. Previously, Pannu's led Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's Pink (2016), on a woman's right to consent, with the iconic line, "No means no." Also, Sinha's Thappad (2020), on marital violence/disrespect.
Refined, reserved Revathi plays the judge in Assi. Back in the day, she starred in Mouna Ragam (1986), about arranged marriage, post a heartbreak that, if viewed from a more feminist lens today, feels like a deeply problematic film (I'm sorry, Mani Ratnam fans).
As for rape-survivors, the most understated, underrated, since largely unwatched Indian film on the subject that I've loved, is Pradip Kurbah's Onaatah (2016) in Khasi language. Rajkumar Santoshi's Damini (1993), of course, remains the most popular.
To give a sense of how confident the filmmakers feel about Assi, it was shown to the Mumbai press a week before release, with the director and cast travelling to multiple cities/towns hosting screenings for sample
audiences since.
Sinha says, "You'll be surprised to know, this (super-early press show) was [producer] Bhushan Kumar's idea. He even asked for [review] embargo to be liftedâ¦" I am surprised. Kumar has also produced blockbusters like Animal, Kabir Singh.
An issue with examining rape-culture is how it's impossible to nail/blame one thing for it. I once wrote a piece for The New York Times, linking it to India's popular culture, but withdrew it subsequently, realising how that infantilised such a complicated phenomenon.
Sinha does well to touch upon several aspects; pop-culture (casual trolls/jokes, Bhojpuri + âFevicol' songs), included. He says the film isn't based on a particular story - but several, that also involved conversations with
psychologists, survivorsâ¦
Sinha's film company is called Benaras. His film's titled Assi. The reference isn't to the holy city's last ghat.
But to the stats that state, assi/80 rapes, on average, take place in India, daily. Paradoxically, it also signifies greater registration of sexual crimes that have traditionally been under-reported.
"Especially, with molestation cases," Sinha says, while struck by the 80-figure. With the urgency of a news channel, a red screen flashes throughout Assi to suggest another 20 minutes have passed; a fresh rape.
According to National Crime Records Bureau data (2018-19), even that number is 81 rapes in India. Every day. And 30 per cent convictions!
No, seriously. How can you look away?
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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