A large family enters a crowded train car. They spread out — busying themselves finding seats, settling in, placing luggage — when the youngest adult woman feels the unwelcome hand of a passing stranger. She whips around, but the man has already disappeared into the crowd, and when she tells a trusted female relative, the result is instinctive disgust, but only briefly.
“That just happens.”
This is not exactly a scene from Uttera Singh’s “Pinch,” but similar enough and entirely true. Her debut feature and 2025 Tribeca Festival premiere takes on a small piece of a big topic, delivering not only a gripping and nuanced narrative but an astutely told directing effort.
Writer and director Singh plays Maitri, whose life takes a sharp turn when her landlord gropes her on a bus and she retaliates in kind. Soon, the incident involves Maitri’s mother, their neighbors, and the small community living in their building, where the man serves as landlord and wields all the power.
“Pinch” is definitionally a film about assault; a woman being groped on a bus or pinched in a crowd is still wrong even if it’s not rape, a point that Maitri makes explicitly. It’s shocking, distressing, inappropriate, and worth condemning, and her conviction rattles everyone around her. Mother Shobha (Geeta Agrawal) begs her to forget about it — about something that happens to every woman at some point, she says — but the film doesn’t fall into the trap of villainizing her. Singh writes Shobha with tangible empathy for the generation before her, for mothers and aunts who normalized sexual misconduct because they felt there was no other choice. She ends up being a critical confidante for Maitri as the film goes on, criticizing and comforting her in equal measure as only a mother can.
The ensemble is equally strong, giving grounded performances that strengthen the community dynamic; Sunita Rajwar as a neighbor who comfortably walks over Shobha, Badri Chavan as Maitri’s pal Samir (and the more successful vlogger among them), and Sapna Sand as Rani, the imperious wife of Maitri’s attacker. Together, they embody societal notions of respect, stubbornness, and principle — the old Indian refrain of “Log kya kahenge?” — and walking reminders of how treacherous it is to ignore and doubt survivors.
Singh and cinematographer Adam Linzey opt for tight, tense tracking shots, placing viewers firmly in Maitri’s mind and space as she navigates the ripple effect of her assault and escalating discomfort with hiding the truth. Raashi Kulkarni’s score periodically deploys influences from Indian classical music, with an actor on screen to perform the rhythmic syllables. The film derives locational specificity not from city or region, but from the apartment building and local community, adding deliberate claustrophobia to the overall narrative tension.
In a statement for the show’s press materials, Singh expressed hope that “Pinch” will start essential conversations between generations and genders, because no group can be tasked with liberating itself in isolation. In her hands, “Pinch” is the kind of film that leaves the viewer invigorated instead of weary — and ready to follow the rest of Singh’s career.
Grade B+
“Pinch” premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The film is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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