'Hilaa diya': Anubhav Sinha's Assi leaves Delhi audience speechless

Anubhav Sinha, the filmmaker behind Thappad (2020) and Mulk (2018), returns with another hard-hitting subject in his upcoming release, Assi. Led by Taapsee Pannu, Kani Kusruti, Revathy, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, the courtroom drama is “based on everyday news”.
On Friday evening in Delhi, Sinha hosted a houseful premiere. The theatre buzzed softly before the screening, but once the lights dimmed, the room settled into an expectant quiet. Taapsee stepped up to address the audience before the film began. Thanking them for taking the time out, she said she hoped they would get “hooked” to the film, quickly adding that “enjoy” would be the wrong word for what they were about to watch.

Written by Sinha and Gaurav Solanki, Assi follows a lawyer, played by Taapsee, who takes on a brutal rape case. In court, she argues that 80 rape cases were reported in a single day in the country, hence the title, Assi (eighty in Hindi). Kani and Zeeshan play a couple whose lives change after she is raped by a group of men and left on tracks. What unfolds is not just a legal battle, but a larger conversation about justice versus revenge, the way sons are raised, and the role of early education in shaping a safer, better society.

For the next 133 minutes, the audience watched mostly in silence. It was the kind of silence where even the rustle of a popcorn bucket felt intrusive. No phones lit up. No one shifted too much in their seats. And when the credits rolled, the stillness lingered. People remained seated, as if adjusting back to reality.

“Bhai, hilaa diya (you’ve shaken us),” one audience member told Sinha. Another voice rose from the back, “Bohot badhiya.” A young girl sitting a few rows ahead noticed, “Seema Pahwa’s short appearance does the most important talking.”

Much like the audience, Kani Kusruti seemed to still be inside the film long after it ended. Watching it for the first time, she said, “I am in the film right now. It is making me wonder a lot.” She admitted that when Sinha first sent her the script, she struggled with certain nuances because she does not speak Hindi fluently. “But after watching the film, I can understand those nuances. Such is the power of cinema.”

Kani, who gained prominence after her performances in All We Imagine As Light and Girls Will Be Girls, reflected on the moral questions the film raises. “What exactly is justice? If something happens to you, is revenge justice? Or is justice what you get in a court of law? And even if you get justice, does life go back to normal? I keep thinking, can we do something to stop this from happening at all? It’s hitting very hard for me.” As she stepped out into the lobby, several audience members walked up to her quietly: “Kani, lovely performance.”

Taapsee returned to the mic after the screening to ask the audience for a favour. “Let’s start a conversation,” she said. “The film alone cannot bring change, but a conversation might. Koshish karte hain. We’ve tried from our side, you try from yours.”

Returning to a recent Instagram post where she urged audiences to support “real stories and good cinema”, she added, “This kind of cinema might become an extinct species soon. Many people say, ‘Why watch reality in theatres? We’ll watch it on OTT.’ But OTT platforms don’t buy films unless they work in theatres. That’s why I say films like this could become extinct. The only way to change that is by talking about them.”

She concluded by reciting lines from Uday Prakash’s poem Marna, which Sinha has used in the film, "Aadmi marne ke baad kuch nahi bolta. Aadmi marne ke baad kuch nahi sochta. Kuch nahi bolne, kuch nahi sochne se aadmi mar jaata hai."

The host of the evening, filmmaker Sudhir Mishra, later said the poem was the perfect way to close the evening, praising Sinha’s commitment to socially conscious storytelling.

Assi releases in theatres on February 20.