Oct 9, 2025 7:30 pm | India | 2024 | 128m | Cert 15 | Crime Drama
A government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is murdered, Santosh is pulled into the investigation by charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.
SANTOSH marks the feature-film debut of writer-director Sandhya Suri, following documentaries I FOR INDIA and AROUND INDIA WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, and short film THE FIELD, which was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Short Film in 2019, and won Best International Short at TIFF in 2018.
The genesis for SANTOSH came when Suri was in India, working with various non-governmental organisations, and came across an image of female protestors, following the Nirbhaya case in 2012. As she describes: ‘There was an image of a huge crowd of angry female protestors, faces contorted with rage, and a line of female police officers, forcing them back. One of these police officers had such an enigmatic expression. I became fascinated with her. What separates her from those protesting, and what power does her uniform wield over those without it? Exploring this violence and this woman’s power within it felt exciting.’
From there, Suri started to research female police constables, learning of the government scheme of ‘appointment on compassionate grounds’, meaning that eligible dependents of deceased police officers can inherit their jobs. Suri spoke to many widows, which provided valuable insight into what these women went through: ‘Some of these women had lived very sheltered lives, rarely leaving the house without their husband. I was struck by the journey from housewife to widow, to policewoman. It was a journey that I wanted to write about, and one that I wanted to watch.
Suri had never written or engaged with fiction in this medium before, but spoke with the Sundance Institute, who encouraged her to write the script. As Suri describes: ‘Their encouragement and direction motivated me to write a draft, which was accepted to the Sundance Labs, first in India, then in the US. Developing the film there and exploring and discussing in such a creatively free and nurturing environment was an incredible experience and fundamental to putting me at ease.
The film was produced with partners across the UK, France, Germany and India, with all producers affirming that there were drawn in by the strength of the story. One of the producers, Mike Goodridge, of UK’s Good Chaos, loved the subversive nature of the story:
‘It was one of those scripts you read that just constantly takes you by surprise. You think it’s going to be one type of film, and then it’s not. It was clear that Sandhya had put a lot of research into what she was doing, both in terms of policing in contemporary India but also the position of women in Indian society’.
Fellow producer, James Bowsher, felt extremely grateful that a project like this had come to them. As he elaborates: ‘What struck me is that I’d never read anything quite like it before. It was a really smart use of the procedural of the noir, where you’re inverting various things, putting them in a context that I’ve never seen before. I remember not quite being able to understand how something so good had fallen into our lap. It was a tremendous opportunity.’
… The main character initially jubilates with her desire for freedom, only to confront the deeply embedded social ills of modern India: a rigid caste system, the demonization of Muslims, femicide, systemic corruption, and toxic patriarchy.