Sandhya Suri’s acclaimed Hindi film 'Santosh', starring Shahana Goswami, has been selected by the British Academy as the UK's submission to the in the international feature film category. The crime thriller created a buzz when it was screened in the Un Certain Regard competition in Cannes earlier this year. UK won the 2024 Academy Award for best international feature for the very first time with Jonathan Glazer’s 'The Zone of Interest'.
ADVERTISEMENT British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri has directed Santosh. She is best known for her documentaries "I for India' (2005) and 'Around India with a Movie Camera' (2018). The film is essentially Indian, set in rural northern India, where newly-widowed Santosh inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable.
When an underage girl from the underprivileged section is murdered, Santosh is pulled into the investigation. 'Santosh' stars in the lead, alongside Sunita Rajwar. The score is by Luisa Gerstein, cinematography by Lennert Hillege and editing by Maxime Pozzi-Garcia.
The film was produced by James Bowsher, Balthazar de Ganay, Mike Goodridge, and Alan McAlex, while executive producers were Ama Ampadu, Martin Gerhard, Lucia Haslauer, Diarmid Scrimshaw, and Eva Yates. It was co-financed by Good Chaos, Razor Film Produktion, Haut et Court, BBC Film, and BFI. Sandhya described the inspiration behind the film in an interview on Cannes Film Festival's website.
She says, "For a long time, I had been searching for a meaningful way to talk about violence against women. I was in India researching and working with various NGOs when I came across an image. There were nationwide protests following the Nirbhaya gang rape case and this was an image from Delhi of a huge crowd of angry female protestors, faces contorted with rage, and a line of female police officers, forcing them back.
One of them had such an enigmatic expression. I was fascinated by her. To explore this violence and her power within it felt exciting.
Once I started to research female police constables I learnt of the government scheme of ‘appointment on compassionate grounds’ in which eligible dependents of deceased police officers can inherit their jobs. During my research, I spent time with many such widows. Some had previously led very sheltered lives, never even leaving the house without their husband or a relative until they started their police training.
I was struck by the journey from housewife to widow to policewoman. That was a journey I wanted to write about and one I wanted to watch.".
