Hindi film Santosh is the UK's entry to the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film

The British Academy has selected Sandhya Suri’s acclaimed crime thriller Santosh, which showed at Cannes earlier this year, as its submission in the Best Foreign Language Film category. 

The directorial feature debut of British-Indian filmmaker Suri, who is best known for her documentaries I for India (2005) and Around India with a Movie Camera (2018), Santosh is set in rural northern India, where the newly-widowed protagonist named Santosh inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable. When an underage girl from a lower caste is murdered, Santosh is recruited into the investigation by a charismatic feminist inspector.

Starring Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, Santosh was shown in the prestigious Un Certain Regard category at Cannes where it received unanimously positive reviews. Its selection by the UK is significant considering that Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine As Light, a joint production of India and France, was not picked for the Oscars by either country. While India went with Kiran Rao's Laapataa Ladies, France chose Emilia Perez starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez. 

Santosh, if shortlisted in the Top 5 at the Academy Awards, will be under some pressure considering last year's entry from the UK — the German language film The Zone of Interest — won the Oscar in the Best International Film category.