It was surprising to see that Sandhya Suri’s Hindi film ‘Santosh’ was sent by Britain as an official entry for the Oscar Award. This was so despite the fact that mesmerizing English films were in the market. ‘Santosh’ competed with films from 85 countries and made it to the second round as one of the 15 films. However, India’s official entry, director Kiran Rao’s ‘Laapaata Ladies’, failed to move beyond the first round.
A Film Made in Britain But Inspired by India
Sandhya Suri and the producers of ‘Santosh’ are British citizens. Therefore, in a way, ‘Santosh’ is a British film. But Indian cinema is not confined to Bollywood alone, so, it is also an Indian film due to its language, story, actors and location. This has been the first theatrical release in the Un Certain Regard category of the 77th Cannes Film Festival of this year. After that, it was presented at different festivals: Mumbai Film Festival, Goa Film Festival and Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The Story of Santosh
Sandhya Suri began working on ‘Santosh’ after being selected for the prestigious Sundance Screen Lab project in 2016. This is a feminism film having Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar in the leading character roles. I want to give credit to the cinematographer Lennart Hillage for shooting the realistic pictures.
The film tells the story of Santosh Baliyan, a woman from a village in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Having lost her husband, a police constable, to assassination while on duty, her in-laws eject her. She was brought by her parents to go and stay at her home. Santosh wants to prepare for competitive exams and applies to live in her husband’s government accommodation. I asked her what happened, and a police officer said she could only remain at the scene if she took her husband’s job.
She joins the police force, thus giving the reader a tale of policemen, corruption, social vices, a woman in a man’s world and a world fraught with challenges that these police force women encountered. Murder of a teenage Dalit girl through rape heightens the movie’s plot.
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