Days after Kiran Rao’s film Missing Ladies was chosen as India’s official entry for the 97th Academy Awards, another Hindi-language film has made its way to the Oscars 2025. Sandhya Suri’s critically acclaimed police procedural drama Santosh has been chosen by the United Kingdom as its official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the global awards show.
Santosh, starring Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, was selected by BAFTA, the organisation appointed by the American Academy specifically to choose the U.K.’s submission. Variety believes the move may put some pressure on Santosh’s team as the U.K. won its first international feature Oscar earlier this year with Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest.
The eligibility criteria for this category was that a British film should be primarily non-English language and should be released in cinemas outside the US between 1 November 2023 and 30 September 2024. Santosh also recently made its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It is the directorial debut of Suri, who has previously made documentaries like I for India and Around India with a Movie Camera.
Also read: FFI’s selection committee that chose the Missing Ladies for Oscars 2025 had no female members; know all about the viral ‘quote’ controversy
Set in rural North India, the story revolves around newly-widowed Santosh, who inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable. A case comes to light when a minor girl from a lower caste is brutally murdered. Santosh is joined in the investigation by a charismatic feminist inspector. This investigative thriller also stars Sanjay Bishnoi, Kushal Dubey, Naval Shukla and Pratibha Awasthi in lead roles.
For those still wondering how Santosh became eligible for selection in the UK, the reason is that the film was widely released in that country and is an international co-production of the United Kingdom (primarily), India, Germany and France. The film is financed by Mike Goodridge, James Bosher, Balthazar de Ganay and Alan McAlex. Its executive producers include Ama Ampadu, Eva Yates, Diarmid Scrimshaw, Lucia Haslauer and Martin Gerhard.
Santosh was co-financed by Good Chaos, Razor Film Production, Haut et Court, BBC Film and BFI. The background score is by Luisa Gerstein, with Lennart Hillage as the cinematographer and Maxime Pozzi-Garcia as the editor.
Also read: Opinion: Missing Ladies’ entry in Oscars 2025 is a revolution – of rural stories, feminism in cinema, agency and freedom
