In ‘Babita Singh Reporting’, a cop ‘makes a journey back home to herself’

In the upcoming film Babita Singh Reporting, Nimisha Sajayan plays a pliant, under-confident assistant sub-inspector who is suspended for no fault of hers. Babita and her husband Sharad (Anshumaan Pushkar) travel to their home town Rewa, where Babita gets involved in solving the death of her childhood friend Bansi (Barun Sobti).

Babita, who’s nicknamed Baby, continues her pursuit despite health problems and domestic tensions. The unofficial investigation reveals truths about Bansi, his wife (Priyanka Setia) and his brother (Nitin NS Goel), but most of all about Babita.

Out on Prime Video on August 28, the Hindi movie marks the feature debut of Ambiecka Pandit, who has previously directed episodes of the series Black Warrant. Pandit gleaned in Amita Vyas’s script shades of a woman with whom she could closely identify.

“I could see shades of Baby in myself, and I have met tonnes of Babys in my life,” Pandit told Scroll. “Baby is caught up in all these roles that define her and in that process, she has lost a grip on who she is. Amita has done this so smartly, through an investigative thriller.”

Pandit described Babita as “specific, unique and fundamentally universal”.

She added, “The film is about this universal female experience of being people-pleasing, of suffocating, of making yourself small and...

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