India-West News Desk
LOS ANGELES, CA – British Indian director Sandhya Suri’s crime thriller Santosh has made it to the shortlist for Best International Feature Film at the 2025 Academy Awards.
The film is the United Kingdom’s official submission and is one of only 15 films selected from 85 entries worldwide.
Premiering at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, Santosh garnered critical acclaim for its gripping narrative.
The film stars Shahana Goswami as the titular character, a young Hindu widow who inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable through a government scheme.
She is drawn into a web of institutional corruption while working alongside a veteran detective, Inspector Geeta Sharma (played by Sunita Rajwar), on a murder case involving a teenage girl from the Dalit community.
In an Instagram post, Goswami expressed her joy at the film’s Oscar recognition, thanking the team, particularly writer-director Sandhya Suri, for their dedication.
“How incredible it is to be shortlisted from amongst 85 films,” she wrote.
Suri, whose background is in documentaries, originally envisioned Santosh as a forensic look at the widespread violence against women in India and the pervasive corruption within the police force.
However, after struggling to capture the horrific subject matter in documentary form, Suri pivoted to a narrative approach.
The tragic 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case, which shocked the world, provided her with a new perspective on the role of female police officers caught between national duty and community pressures.
The nominations voting will begin on January 8 and close on January 12, with the final nominees for the 97th Academy Awards announced on January 17.
The Oscars ceremony will take place on March 2, 2025.
(Courtesy: https://indiawest.com/)
Commenti