Zubeen Garg's Final Film Takes Over Assam Cinemas, Reopening Shuttered Halls

A farewell that brought cinemas back to life

Zubeen Garg's final film, Roi Roi Binale, opened in Guwahati at 4:25 a.m. on October 31, 2025, as cinemas across Assam cleared their schedules for the late singer and actor. At least eight previously shuttered halls reopened for the release, including Ganesh Talkies in Jagiroad, which had been closed since the COVID-19 lockdown.

The 146-minute Assamese musical drama arrived six weeks after Garg, 52, died while swimming in Singapore on September 19. Its release became both a public farewell and an unusual commercial event: a regional film occupying an entire state's cinemas, drawing bookings across India and bringing dormant theatres back into use.

Rajiv Bora, president of the Assam Cinema Hall Owners' Association, said the film was playing in all 85 cinema halls in the state. A member of the production team had put advance bookings across 90 screens, saying every opening day ticket had been sold. A hall is a cinema venue, while a screen is an individual auditorium, so a venue with several auditoriums can contribute several screens to a release.

Bora described the position on release day:

No other film is being screened in Assam right now.

The Assam government also announced that its entire share of Goods and Services Tax revenue from the film would go to Garg's Kalaguru Artiste Foundation. The organisation supports medical treatment for artists, people affected by floods and students needing financial help.

For audiences, the immediate result was more opportunities to watch Garg's last performance, including screenings before dawn. For cinema operators, the demand was strong enough to justify repairs, extra shows and the reopening of buildings that had spent years without an audience.

What Assam's exclusive screenings changed

Cinema operators suspended films already playing, including Thamma, Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat, Kantara: A Legend Chapter – 1, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle, Jolly LLB 3 and Regretting You. New releases including Baahubali: The Epic, Single Salma, The Taj Story, The Black Phone 2, Bugonia and Good Boy were also left off Assam's schedules.

The All Assam Cinema Hall Owners' Association had announced at an October 27 press conference at Hotel Apollo Grand in Guwahati that its cinemas would show no Hindi films while Roi Roi Binale was screening. By opening day, Bora described a wider arrangement in which no competing film was playing in the state.

The exclusive programme was a decision by cinema operators. The government's announced contribution concerned tax revenue. No fixed date was given for the return of other films to Assam's screens.

Assamese releases also moved. Agnibaan and Kokadeuta Nati Aru Hati 02, which had been expected in November, postponed their release dates. Homework, previously scheduled for September, and Jowone Amoni Kore 02, scheduled for October, were postponed indefinitely. Respect for Garg and the commercial conditions surrounding his final film both shaped those decisions.

Shows stretched from before dawn into the night

Matrix Cinemas in Guwahati scheduled a 4:25 a.m. opening, earlier than the 5 a.m. show initially announced at TNZ Cinemas in Tezpur. Nakshatra Cinemas in Lakhimpur scheduled its first screening at 4:35 a.m., with all tickets for its eight shows sold out.

RR Cinema in Dhemaji arranged seven shows beginning at 4:45 a.m. Guwahati's PVR at City Center and INOX Insignia at Aurus Mall lined up 23 opening day screenings between them. Some cinemas scheduled shows as late as 2:05 a.m.

The release developed through several key dates:

• September 19: Garg died in Singapore while visiting for the North East India Festival.
• October 25: Advance ticket sales opened and seats were rapidly booked.
• October 27: Cinema owners addressed ticket pricing and announced their screening plans.
• October 31: Roi Roi Binale opened, with Guwahati screenings beginning at 4:25 a.m.

Closed theatres found an audience again

Ganesh Talkies carries a particular connection to Garg. During an earlier performance in Jagiroad, in Morigaon district, he had spoken about its closure and promised to help revive Assam's struggling cinemas with a single screen. His last film supplied the demand that brought the hall back into operation.

At least eight long shuttered halls were repaired, cleaned and reopened for the release. Bora also said eight or nine new screens had opened. Together, the reopened venues and additional screens expanded the number of places where audiences could see the film.

Those changes mattered beyond opening day ticket sales. In a town with few cinemas, a closed hall removes a local place to watch films altogether. Reopening one gives residents another venue and adds seats at a time when nearby screenings may already be full.

Bora expected full houses for at least a month. Whether the reopened halls would continue operating after the rush for Roi Roi Binale was not announced. Their immediate revival, however, was already a concrete result of the film's release.

A national release with strong demand beyond Assam

Roi Roi Binale was scheduled to reach 46 Indian cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Chandigarh, Shillong and Gangtok. Bengaluru alone had 31 shows arranged for a single day, while bookings were also filling quickly in Ahmedabad and Jaipur.

Saurav Dutta, the East Zone head of cinema distribution company UFO, said figures available on the Wednesday evening before release showed approximately 91 screens in the Northeast and 85 outside the region. Together, those figures amount to about 176 screens, with nearly half outside the Northeast. Dutta said the numbers could rise.

Dutta estimated that around 150,000 people could watch the film each day. He expected an easy run of two months and potentially several more months after that. In places with few cinemas, he suggested screenings might continue for six months to a year as audiences worked through the limited seats available.

Those were forecasts from a distribution executive. The immediate evidence of demand was the advance booking pattern: screenings filled for nearly a week, with some locations taking bookings as far as 20 days ahead.

The film Garg spent years bringing to the screen

Director Rajesh Bhuyan's musical drama centres on a blind artist, played by Garg, in a region recovering from terrorism. The story combines a love story with the struggles of a musician trying to find a place for his art.

Garg conceived the project in 2007, wrote its story and composed all 11 songs. He also produced the film with his wife, Garima Saikia Garg, and Shyamantak Gautam. Zeal Creations and i-Creation were the production companies behind it.

The cast includes Mousumi Alifa, Joy Kashyap, Achurjya Borpatra, Victor Banerjee, Ujjal Rajkhowa, Mitali Roy and Angurlata Deka. Garg's involvement across performance, music, writing and production made the film an unusually concentrated expression of his work.

Rahul Gautam Sharma, the film's scriptwriter, explained the ideas he saw in the project:

This film reflects what he stood for - his politics, his understanding of art, his stance against extremism, and his belief in love as resistance.

The film was also presented as the first Assamese production to feature Dolby Atmos. The sound format allows filmmakers to place audio around the audience, including overhead, rather than limiting it to a conventional arrangement of speakers. For a film built around a musician and 11 songs, sound was a substantial part of the cinema experience.

Finishing the work after his death

Bhuyan said most of Roi Roi Binale had been completed before Garg died, with limited background music work remaining. Garima Saikia Garg and the director kept the October 31 release date that Garg had planned.

Bhuyan described the responsibility of completing the film:

This was Zubeen's dream. He left us at the last moment. It was very difficult - emotionally and artistically. We tried to keep every detail the way he wanted.

Poran Borkatoky took over the background score, work Garg had intended to do himself. Borkatoky said his generation had learnt music from Garg and that the team tried to bring those lessons into the film.

Bhuyan said Garg's original voice recordings would be retained, with minimal restoration assisted by artificial intelligence where necessary. Restoration here means repairing recorded sound so it can be used in the finished film. Preserving those recordings kept Garg's own performance at the centre of the release.

Ticket prices became a point of dispute

Advance business reportedly exceeded Rs 50 lakh, or Rs 5 million, before release. The producers described that figure as a record for Assamese cinema. Fans also helped promote the film by putting up posters and asking viewers not to record scenes on their phones or circulate clips.

Demand brought complaints about dynamic pricing at national cinema chains. Dynamic pricing means a ticket price can change as demand rises, rather than staying at one fixed amount. Fans objected to higher prices for a release they regarded as a tribute, and producers asked the chains to suspend the practice.

The cinema owners' association said at its October 27 press conference that Assam's local operators had increased the number of screenings rather than ticket prices. Its response concerned the practices of those operators, while the complaints about changing prices focused on national chains.

The association also argued that Assamese producers faced unequal arrangements for sharing ticket revenue compared with Hindi films. It attributed damage to regional cinema to business interests from outside Assam, presenting the exclusive screenings as support for the local industry as well as a farewell to Garg.

Bora predicted that Roi Roi Binale could cross Rs 100 crore, equivalent to Rs 1 billion. That was his expectation for its eventual earnings. The reported advance business and the final box office total are different measures, with the latter depending on ticket sales throughout the film's run.

Tax revenue will support Garg's charitable work

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Assam would transfer its share of GST collected from the film to the Kalaguru Artiste Foundation. He said Garima Saikia Garg had agreed to the plan.

Sarma explained that Assam had no separate entertainment tax to waive, responding to requests for the film to be made tax free. The government instead chose to pass on the state's portion of GST after receiving it, which he said generally happened about a month later.

Sarma described the intended uses of the money:

The state government will exclusively hand over its share of the GST realised from the movie to the Kalaguru Artiste Foundation to support medical treatment of artistes, help flood victims, and assist needy students in their academic pursuits.

The arrangement connects ticket sales with work Garg supported during his life. His foundation had assisted people during Assam's floods and helped people facing financial hardship. For viewers buying tickets, part of the tax collected on the film would now flow to that organisation.

A release shaped by public mourning

Garg's death in Singapore brought a vast public response in Assam. More than a million people came to pay their respects at the Arjun Bhogeswar Baruah Sports Complex after his body returned with state honours, and thousands followed the funeral procession to Kamarkuchi village.

His ashes were later immersed in the Brahmaputra, with Garima and family members taking part. The cinema release followed that period of collective mourning, giving audiences another place to gather around his voice and work.

Singapore's initial autopsy attributed his death to drowning, and police initially said there was no foul play. His wife described a seizure in the water. Assam established a Special Investigation Team, which was still investigating the circumstances in late October, with several associates arrested in connection with the inquiry.

Roi Roi Binale arrived while that investigation continued. Its immediate effect was visible in cinema schedules, reopened halls and bookings across India: Garg's final screen performance had become an occasion that reached far beyond an ordinary film opening.

Key Points

• Roi Roi Binale opened on October 31, 2025, with a 4:25 a.m. screening in Guwahati.
• Assam cinema operators cleared competing films from their schedules for Garg's final performance.
• At least eight shuttered halls reopened, including Ganesh Talkies in Jagiroad.
• The release was planned across 46 Indian cities, with approximately 176 screens counted by UFO before opening.
• Garg played a blind artist, wrote the story, composed 11 songs and helped produce the film.
• Assam will give its share of GST revenue from the film to the Kalaguru Artiste Foundation.
• No fixed date was announced for competing films to return to Assam's cinemas.