U.K. Oscar Submission 'Santosh' Sets Holiday Release
Shahana Goswami as Santosh in 'Santosh'
BBC Films
One of the significant problems that the Academy Awards continues to struggle with is that most years, they're awarding films no one has seen. This is due to a variety of factors, from Art House movies being traditionally challenging to market to those in the movie industry who vote for the categories snobbishly eschewing films that make bank at the box office as somehow "not good enough." However, the worst reason is that most of the time, these films come and go from theaters in the blink of an eye, or worse, never open anywhere near the average viewer.
That's almost certainly what will happen with Santosh, which already had one "blink and you already missed it" run in the States in July 2024. The Hindi language film is the first fictional story from documentary director Sandhya Suri, and now the official submission from the U.K. for the Best International Film at the 2025 Academy Awards. The BFI, bestowing the honor of the film, guaranteed it would play in the U.S. a second time so voters could see it in theaters. However, it's only coming out in limited release, and worse, it arrives in the middle of the week between Christmas and New Year, which this year also means smack in the middle of Hanukkah to boot.
For those who have not read about the film when it originally debuted at Cannes 2024, it is the story of a widow who takes over her late husband's position as the local police constable, only to discover that policing allows her to help young women in trouble. Soon enough, she's trying to solve the brutal murder of a young girl despite not having the proper training or the respect of her male peers. Check out the trailer:
Here’s the film’s synopsis.
In rural Northern India, newly widowed Santosh inherits her late husband’s job as a police constable and becomes embroiled in the investigation of a young girl’s murder.
Shahana Goswami (A Suitable Boy) stars as the titular Santosh Saini, with Sunita Rajwar (The White Elephant) co-starring as Geeta Sharma. The cast also includes Sanjay Bishnoi (Delhi Crime), Kushal Dubey (Pyaar vs Dosti 2), Nawal Shukla (Bestseller), and Pratibha Awasthi (Raid).
Written and directed by Sandhya Suri, Santosh debuted at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival under the Un Certain Regard banner. It is her first fictional feature film; her previous works include the feature-length documentaries I for India and Around India with a Movie Camera, both of which she directed and wrote. Ama Ampadu, Eva Yates, Diarmid Scrimshaw, Lucia Haslauer, and Martin Gerhard executive produced the film.
Santosh will play in limited-release theaters in the U.S. starting Friday, December 27, 2024, and will be available on streaming on Fandango Now for those who do not have a theater nearby showing it
