Bokshi has already been around the international festival circuit for a while, and it finally has a proper Indian theatrical release – Bhargav Saikia’s feature directorial debut premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2025, later played festivals including Sitges, and is now scheduled for a much wider theatrical release across India on 9 October 2026.
It was also shot in the forests of Sikkim, which is probably one of the reasons the film has such a strong sense of place rather than looking like another horror movie that could have been filmed anywhere, and at over two hours, this isn’t exactly a quick little horror film either.
A School Trip Goes Very Badly
Anahita, played by Prasanna Bisht, is still dealing with the brutal disappearance of her mother when she finds some comfort in Shalini, her history teacher, played by Mansi Multani, and that relationship changes when Anahita joins an unusual school excursion to a mysterious prehistoric site known as The Navel.
Shalini initially appears to be helping the troubled teenager deal with her past, but there is clearly something else going on, and as the group gets closer to the site, the trip starts falling apart, where the prehistoric location is connected to ancient forces and a cult surrounding Bokshi, a frightening folkloric demoness, and Anahita eventually finds herself confronting something connected to her own destiny.
The nice thing about that setup is that it doesn’t immediately throw everything at you – there is a school trip, a teacher, a traumatised student and a strange archaeological location – and then gradually the whole thing starts becoming much less normal.
This One Has Already Been Tested at Rotterdam
One of the more interesting facts about Bokshi is that its international life started back in 2025, when it received its world premiere in the Harbour section of IFFR, and the festival described it as a visceral supernatural horror set around a high school and praised its layered sound design, unusual colour palette and increasingly intense approach to its mythology.
The official IFFR listing gives the festival version a 166-minute runtime, although other databases currently list shorter versions around the 142–143 minute mark, and it also made it to Sitges, where it was presented as part of the 2025 festival and described as part of the current revival of folk horror.
Bhargav Saikia’s First Feature
This is Bhargav Saikia’s first feature as a director, which makes the festival run even more notable, and Saikia also produced the film, handled the production design, and shot the movie in the forests of Sikkim, while Harsh Vaibhav wrote the screenplay.
Siddharth Sivasankaran and A. Vasanth handle the cinematography, with Himanshu Chutia Saikia editing. Lorien Motion Pictures is the production company and also holds the film’s world rights – there is also a rather unusual language mix going on here. Bokshi uses Hindi, English, Nepali and Boksirit, with Boksirit being a fully developed fictional language created for the film.
That’s the sort of completely unnecessary extra detail I like in a horror film, as if you’re going to invent a language for your witch movie, you might as well actually invent the language.
What Exactly Is Bokshi?
The title itself is also useful because “Bokshi” means “witch” in Nepali, which fits the film’s connection to the region and its folklore, but Saikia has apparently been interested in doing something slightly different with the idea rather than simply creating another evil-witch horror story.
The director has described the film as a cautionary tale dealing with women’s empowerment and humanity’s relationship with Mother Earth, while also wanting to challenge the negative idea of the witch that exists in society, which gives the folklore a bit more weight than simply having a scary woman appear in the woods.
There is mythology here, but there is also a reason for the mythology to exist.
The Cast
Prasanna Bisht leads the film as Anahita, with Mansi Multani playing Shalini. The cast also includes Kaushik Bharadwaj, Shernaz Patel, Dagi Ngomdir, Bhasker Pradhan and Sandeep Shridhar Dhabale – Bisht and Multani will be particularly important to the film because so much of the early story depends on the relationship between Anahita and Shalini before the supernatural side really takes over.
And there is a nice bit of contrast there — Anahita is dealing with the disappearance of her mother, while Shalini is the adult who initially appears to offer her some stability.
Which, naturally, is exactly when you should start getting suspicious.
A Proper Folk Horror Approach
From the festival descriptions I have read, Bokshi isn’t trying to hide the fact that it is a big, strange, occasionally excessive piece of folk horror, and IFFR specifically praised the film for allowing itself to be cheesy when it needs to be, rather than constantly trying to make itself look serious or respectable.
There is something increasingly common happening in modern horror where every film seems terrified of being seen as too much – everything has to be restrained, bleak and miserable – but Bokshi apparently isn’t particularly interested in that.
It’s got a fictional language, prehistoric mythology, a mysterious cult, a school trip, a witch/demoness and a runtime that can apparently stretch well beyond two hours.
I’m interested!
Trailer
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