Mumbai, Jan 14 (IANS): Violence, gender dynamics, and personal empowerment, ‘Santosh’, the United Kingdom’s official entry for the 2025 Academy Awards for the Best International Feature Film category had been brewing in writer and director Sandhya Suri’s mind for long.
Reflecting on the origins of the movie, Suri tells IANS that she had been searching for a meaningful way to talk about violence against women for a long time.
“She said, “When I was in India researching and working with various NGOs, 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 protesters, 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”.
She continued, “What a gulf between her and those protesting, what power her uniform wielded and what powerlessness not to feel safe as an ordinary woman. When I started researching 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”.
Spending time with many such widows, she realised some had previously led very sheltered lives, never even leaving the house without their husbands or relatives 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,” she said.
The film revolves around a young widow who inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable in rural India and investigates a murder. This is the first time the UK has selected a Hindi-language film for this category. Having studied mathematics as an undergraduate, Suri says she did not want to dissect films the way she did with English literature.
Talking about the time when she was a teacher of English in Germany, she recalled, “Making films was what excited me, not analyzing them. So I decided to go to film school as a postgraduate, leaving the door open for something entirely different”.
Her background in mathematics, she explains, helped her develop a unique way of thinking, which she carried over into her filmmaking approach. Having trained in documentary filmmaking at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in the UK, the director, who has made documentaries including ‘I for India’, ‘Around India with a Movie Camera’, and the narrative short film ‘The Field’, tells that work on ‘Santosh’ began in 2016.
“The script was in good shape after the Sundance Scriptwriters’ Lab, but the real work was researching, refining details, and fleshing out the characters. The film’s protagonist, Santosh, a female constable, didn’t fit the typical mould seen in many films set in India. She was not a diasporic character discovering her roots or an upper-middle-class protagonist fluent in English. Santosh does not speak English. She is a constable. I wanted to keep that authentic,” says the
director.
Recalling that she was “carrying her shopping bags” both times when she heard the news that ‘Santosh’ was selected for the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival and later the Oscars, Suri says, “I dropped the shopping, gave a fist pump, and shouted. My 11-year-old daughter was so happy that she forgot to be embarrassed”.
Her next project which is set in a dystopian world, she reveals. “I feel I have to settle all the lessons I learnt. It was a steep learning curve. I know to keep speaking from the heart, and I am always checking the project’s heart and pulse and to know its anchor is as firm as in ‘Santosh’”.
Documentary filmmakers have forever complained about the lack of a distribution network and exhibition. Suri comments, “This is a global phenomenon. I have no solution but wish for documentary to be respected for the astounding art form it is as well as just a film ‘about a particular subject’. There is so much craft and form to it, which sometimes gets overlooked”.
Even as indie filmmakers face an uphill battle regarding securing theatrical releases or getting picked up for streaming platforms, Suri is optimistic, “I tend to have faith in the audiences. If the film is strong and engaging, not boring, the labels don’t matter, whether it goes to a festival or not. It will find its audience if the distributors, in whose hands we lie, believe and dare,” she said.
Anushka Shah, CEO and founder of Civic Studios which will release the film in the UK and Ireland says, “As a British-Indian director with immense talent, Suri has done a fantastic job in serving both the issue and the story brilliantly on screen”.
The movie looks at a fundamental vestige of Britain’s colonial history in India - its police system and explores the many pressures within and outside the system. This combined with being a thriller that keeps you at the edge of your seat as it unravels a high-pressure police case, gives it a universal appeal for audiences looking for good and engaging storytelling”, she added.