- Saturday, September 28, 2024
The film is set in rural northern India, where a newly-widowed woman inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable
By: Shajil Kumar
THE BRITISH ACADEMY has chosen a Hindi film “Santosh”, made by a Asian-origin filmmaker Sandhya Suri, for the UK’s submission to the Oscars.
“Santosh” is Suri’s debut feature film, and she is more known for her documentaries “I for India” (2005) and “Around India with a Movie Camera” (2018).
The film is set in rural northern India, where a newly-widowed woman inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable.
She is assigned to investigate the murder of an underage girl, who belongs to the bottom rung of India’s caste hierarchy.
The film lays bare the upper-caste hegemony in modern India, and the institutionalised corruption across the police force.
Written and directed by Suri, “Santosh” stars Shahana Goswami in the lead role, alongside Sunita Rajwar, Kushal Dubey and Sanjay Bishnoi.
The film had its world premiere at Cannes 2024.
Behind the camera, the score was by Luisa Gerstein, cinematography by Lennert Hillege and editing by Maxime Pozzi-Garcia.
The film will be released in the U.S. by Metrograph Pictures and at Oscars it will contest in the international feature film category.
Congress party MP Sashi Tharoor tweeted on X: How utterly astonishing that a Hindi language film with an Indian cast is the UK’s official entry for the Oscars! Guess we should be rooting for it too!
