New Delhi: In the stillness of a dense forest, two men drag a wailing and bound third across a brook. The next 12 minutes are a reflection on how revenge becomes a ritual for masculinity. Directed by Samir Zaidi, Two Sinners explores themes of honour, vengeance, rage, and masculinity within a limited screen time.
The short film’s cast features Shardul Bhardwaj, Deipak Sampat, Baharul Islam, and Aditi Sivaraman. Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj is one of the executive producers.
In Two Sinners, Azhar (Bharadwaj) and his brother Hussain (Sampat) are on the brink of delivering vigilante justice to Mushtaq, who is screaming in pain in the middle of nowhere. The only information offered to the audience is that he has assaulted a woman. Soon, we learn that the woman who was attacked was their sister.
“Can’t you hear the screams of Sameena?” Hussain asks the bound man and Azhar’s stance changes immediately. When he confronts the alleged rapist, Azhar asks him the same question again.
Through the film, the director makes his audience confront the idea that it’s less about the act and more about how something inside you changes—the shift between the victim and the perpetrator, and the thin line that separates them.
“The film was never meant to be about what happened but about what is happening inside the characters. By not specifying where they are geographically, what they do, or what transpired in the past, I wanted to keep the story stripped down to its emotional core,” Samir Zaidi said.
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The burden of ‘honour’
In Two Sinners, that shift is observed through Azhar, who is initially extremely reluctant to kill the man. We see his face only later, a burlap sack over his head conceals his identity.
“When Shardul (the actor playing Azhar) read the script, he said that it made him uneasy but in a good way because it made him ask questions he had never thought of before,” Zaidi, who first worked with the actor in Rohin Raveendran’s 2024, said.
Zaidi’s intent was not to explain everything to his audience but to make the experience of the characters more universal in nature. The lack of context was deliberate, it makes audiences project their own experiences and moral questions onto the film.
“Once you give too much information, the audience begins to analyse, but if you withhold just enough, they begin to feel. For me, Two Sinners is about evoking emotions rather than providing answers,” Zaidi said.
Hence, it is alluded that the man who assaulted Sameena, is also known to the two young men. It implies that even ‘well-meaning’ men can easily cross over to inflict violence upon those they see as weaker than themselves.
The film is also a commentary on patriarchy and masculinity, especially with the burden of avenging a woman’s honour placed upon men. It explores the identity of men as ‘protectors’, who must ‘punish’ anyone who violates women. It is a role thrust upon Azhar, by the repetition of the dialogue about his sister’s torment.
A personal journey
The film premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival on 21 June this year and has also been selected as India’s only live-action entry at the BAFTA-qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2025. It was also part of Seattle’s Tasveer Film Festival, among the world’s leading South Asian film platforms.
“Since shorts don’t have commercial value in the traditional sense, it’s much harder to get consistent attention from distributors, media, and even audiences. Festivals are often the window of discovery, but then you compete with hundreds of other films,” Zaidi said.
Growing up in Unnao with a Muslim father and Hindu mother shaped the way he looked at the world and its contradictions and nuances.
“The journey of Two Sinners has been deeply personal and organic. I first wrote the script seven years ago, and it evolved through many as I worked with directors like Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Vishal Bhardwaj. Each experience shaped how I understood character, conflict and emotion,” said Zaidi.
He has also served as a creative producer on the second season of Netflix’s Sacred Games, and assisted Bhardwaj on Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley (2023), Fursat (2023), and Khufiya (2023).
Bhardwaj’s support also boosted Zaidi’s confidence. His feedback, Zaids says, had helped him better the film too.
“His dedication to exploring complex human emotions and morally intricate narratives stands out. I’m proud to support him in bringing this remarkable work to life. It is a brave, morally restless film, and Samir’s voice rings true,” Bhardwaj said in an interview.
This article is part of ThePrint’s series on independent films. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)