(The following story contains spoilers for Santosh.)
Sandhya Suri’s ‘Santosh’ won two British Independent Film Awards on Sunday.
Not only were Balthazar de Ganey and James Bowsher honored in the Breakthrough Producer category, Suri also won Best Original Screenplay for his feature film debut.
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The British-Indian director has a strong background in documentaries, and Santosh was initially intended to be just that. It was a forensic examination of India’s rampant violence against women, deep-rooted corruption within the police force, and powerless women. I was forced to watch.
“It was so scary that I didn’t know how to present it as a documentary,” Suri told The Hollywood Reporter about Britain’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature. “The project has been canceled.”
But the brutal and shocking case of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh, who was gang-raped in Delhi in 2012 by her bus driver and five accomplices, changed everything for Suri. . The ‘Nirbhaya’ incident (meaning ‘the fearless one’), as it was dubbed by the media, gave the filmmakers an opportunity to approach the film from a completely different angle: a female police officer caught between the state and the community. Ta.
Santosh stars Shahana Goswami as a young Hindu widow who takes over her husband’s constable job thanks to a government scheme. She is investigated by Inspector Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwal), a rough veteran detective who is in charge of a murder case involving a teenage girl from a lower caste Dalit community, but due to corruption within the organization. I find myself getting caught up in it.
With a UK theatrical release set for March 21, 2025, Suri is set to win an Oscar after being selected to represent Britain, an image from the Delhi protests that inspired the film. He spoke to THR about his expectations for , and the somewhat “Bollywood” ending. This story is exactly what it says: “It’s a story about a different way to be a woman.”
Congratulations, Sandhya! How was BIFA for you?
It was really nice. Because I feel that people are gradually starting to watch movies. Coming out the door wasn’t fast at all. But slowly, slowly, I feel like people are now seeing this movie and starting to talk about it a little bit. And the people who watch it give me very happy feedback.
good, Santosh is more than just a movie. This is the UK’s Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
Isn’t it great? (The award was previously given to the best non-English language film.) But it means a lot to me that we have this police system[in the film]that is a relic of British rule. The way that’s expressed in the story feels British in a strange way. So I’m very, very proud. Cheering for India (ourselves), cheering for England. I feel doubly supported. They also adopted me in India.
Directed by Santosh, Sandhya Suri.
How did Santosh come about? She’s amazing. A quietly forceful protagonist.
Well, I come from documentaries. I was in the Hindu belt of India, working with various NGOs. I was trying to make a documentary about violence against women. If you know anything about India, you know…I wanted to work on it, but it was so scary that I didn’t know how to express it in documentary form. I was just looking at it and my aim was to somehow try to get into it, it’s violence. Please look into it and understand better. Then I realized that my method wasn’t working. The project has been canceled.
Then in 2012, there was the Nirbhaya incident, a horrific gang rape (of Jyoti Singh) on a bus. I was so struck by the photos of female protesters who were completely enraged and spewing hate. And they’re confronting this constable, a female constable. Her visor was half-lowered, but I could see a very mysterious look on her face. I was hooked. I’m like, “Oh my god, that’s how I’m going to tell this story.” I’ll pass it on through her. I channel it through her because she has both of those things. She is both the perpetrator and the victim, experiencing their power, but also powerless. Then I started researching female police officers and learned about these “compassionate appointments” (positions given to the next of kin of civil servants who died in service). I thought this was definitely a story worth watching. The story is about a woman who becomes a widow and then becomes a policewoman in one of the most corrupt forces in the country. Then I had to find a way to write novels and make genre films. And all that was left was to make the movie.
I also didn’t know that a compassionate appointment system existed. We witness her incredibly transformative journey. Where did you want to end up compared to the characters you first meet?
I think what was important to me was that corruption is often talked about in the film industry and the police world, not just in India but everywhere. And what I knew was that I didn’t want to make a movie about good cops in a bad system. I had no interest in that. I was interested in a world that is very morally ambiguous. It felt true and Santosh was trying to find his gray within it. So what’s her gray? (That) was my question. And the other question is, if she crosses the line, is there a way back? And at the end of the movie, (Gita) says, “Look, there are two ways to be a woman. You can be like me, or you can be a bird stuck in the house with nothing.”
This is a dark movie on many levels, but at the end, Santosh says, “This is a dark movie on many levels. There must be a third way. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’m going to catch a train to Mumbai. “It’s a little bit like Bollywood, isn’t it? But I’m going to find that third way. It’s about a different way of being a woman, neither of those things.
I was shocked by their performance. In her final conversation with Gita, she effectively says that if an innocent man has to die for the safety of a woman, she is willing to take the blame. Where does the responsibility lie when it comes to bringing about change?
Well, I think that conversation with Gita is very interesting. Because that’s the only time she gets to express herself in the movie, right? We don’t know her at all, but ultimately I feel like I can’t even post that conversation without knowing her. She has psychofeminism, and everything she says is completely outrageous, but given the context of the movie, it also makes sense in a horrifying way. And I thought that was interesting. When you listen to that discourse, you don’t just think, “Oh, isn’t she crazy?” She’s right, but I also understand why she deployed this rhetoric.
But in addition to that, there is another question. It’s, “Does she believe her rhetoric?” She is. I think she really cares about women on some level. And there’s something about what Santosh is doing in the film too. Obviously, when women hear stories of violence and hear about the violence that is perpetrated against women every day, people get filled with anger. It sits very deep. And what should we do with that anger? Yeah,[Gita]was brewing something and came up with this, which I think is interesting. But Santosh also has this sacrifice, which gives her a deep humanity.
Sunita Rajwal (left) as Geeta Sharma in Santosh.
That’s exactly right. Gita has this mysterious, unknown quality. And we see it through Santosh’s eyes. Of course, these themes are very appropriate, but what do you want to evoke in your audience?
That’s difficult. Obviously, it’s not just violence against women. That’s the starting point. There are many things within the structure of this film, including Islamophobia, casteism, corruption, and casual violence. Tapestry is in the DNA of this place where she is. And for me, it was more about holding up a mirror of sorts and saying that all of this can somehow exist very casually, very mundanely. How do you feel about it as an audience in India? Also, where do we stand among the fault lines that cross society?Shahana, who plays Santosh, said so. She personally felt that, as an Indian living in India, it held up a mirror. And it’s less about pointing fingers and more about holding up a mirror and asking questions about where we sit in all of this.
Was this movie shot entirely in India?
Yeah.
How long did the shooting take?
Forty-four days.
Oh, that’s amazing.
It’s a big movie. I mean, there’s a lot going on. There are about 76 speaking parts. There were some cuts, but there were stunts and crowd scenes. This is a new feature. So they very kindly gave us enough time to do the difficult things like shooting in all these live locations and working on it. So it took a while.
So it’s a testament to the trust they had in you. Following your win at BIFA and the Oscars just around the corner, what are your hopes for us now that awards season is in full swing?
The idea that you have no influence on the outcome of your work is firmly rooted in Hinduism, right? You work to the best of your ability and the universe takes care of the rest. Although it’s tiring, I enjoy engaging with different audiences around the world. I think this movie talks about many important things in a fascinating way. I just hope that this film reaches audiences in many places, that it has healthy distribution in the UK, and that people come and see it when it’s released in India. Now we have distributors. I just hope this award will help bring this film to the audience. Because that’s why I made this movie.
We had great results in Paris, France. It opened above Twisters. It couldn’t top Twisters. (Laughs) But we opened above Twisters. We had a great run. And France is a country that has less ties to India than Britain. It took a very long time to get distribution here and secure it. So I just hope that a good film culture will develop in the UK. We trust our viewers. This is a genre movie. It’s not boring. It just happened to be in Hindi. And I think what’s amazing about showing this movie now in so many different countries, whether it’s Japan, Poland, everywhere, is that it feels so universal and that audiences are connecting with it.
