Santosh's release has been blocked in India

Critically-acclaimed film Santosh — a made in India project which was the UK's entry to the Oscars this year — is unlikely to release in India. This is because the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has deemed it unsuitable to be shown to audiences in this country on account of its "portrayal of police brutality".

The award-winning film set in a fictional town in India made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year and is currently playing in cinemas in the UK.  But the Indian censor board has refused to approve the Shahana Goswami starrer for domestic release. Shahana recently won the best actress award at the Asian Film Awards for the film written and directed by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri.

Santosh has reportedly been blocked over concerns of its portrayal of misogyny, Islamophobia and violence in the Indian police force. It has been internationally acclaimed for its story of a young widow who joins the police force and investigates the murder of a young Dalit girl.

Santosh also grapples with the issue of sexual violence in India, particularly against lower caste women, and the rising tide of anti-Muslim prejudice in the country.

Santosh made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival to widespread acclaim. It was the UK’s official entry for the Oscars’ international feature category and went on to be nominated for a Bafta for Best Debut Feature this year.

The film was made in India, has an entirely Indian cast, and is in Hindi. Faced with its no-show in India, Sandhya Suri described the decision by the censors as “disappointing and heartbreaking”.

“It was surprising for all of us because I didn’t feel that these issues were particularly new to Indian cinema or hadn’t been raised before by other films,” she said.

Suri said the censors had demanded a list radical cuts so lengthy and wide-ranging that they would be “impossible” to implement. 

“It was very important to me that the film is released in India so I did try to figure out if there was a way to make it work,” said Suri. “But in the end it was just too difficult to make those cuts and have a film that still made sense, let alone stayed true to its vision.”

Suri emphasised that while the film offered an uncompromising depiction of the police, “I don’t feel my film glorifies violence in a way that many other films focusing on the police have done. There’s nothing sensationalist about it.”