A government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her slain husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of northern India. When an underage girl from one of India’s lower castes is murdered, Santosh is pulled into the investigation by feminist inspector Sharma.
This is the premise of the movie “Santosh” by Sandhya Suri. She is very well known for her documentaries like “I for India” and “Around India with a Movie Camera”, and BAFTA nominated fiction short “The Field”.
Suri said in an interview that she was trying to find a way to portray the violence women face but couldn’t find an output so she chose the way of fiction.
She also added that she had been working with lots of NGOs and have seen lots of terrible stuffs and then the Delhi 2012 gang rape that shook the world.
Suri was fascinated by the aftermath of this rape case, a huge wave of people with candels in their hands.
The photograph of a crowd of angry female protestors and a line of female police officers forcing them back, is something which intellectually provoked her.
The titular role of Santosh is played by Shahana Goswami, BBC-Netflix series “A Suitable Boy”and Netflix series “Bombay Begums” are few of her notable works.
The reason behind Suri casting her is , “The right mix of hardness and sweetness and anger lies there in a very restrained way.”