Just weeks after Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies was chosen as India’s official entry into the Oscars 2025, another entry to the 97th Academy Award has created great buzz among Indians.
Yes, you read it right.
The British Academy has submitted Sandhya Suri’s fiction feature, a Hindi-language film with an Indian cast, to the Oscars‘ international feature film category. The news has sparked many reactions.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) said in a statement, “BAFTA is pleased to confirm that Sandhya Suri’s film ‘Santosh’ is the UK selection for next year’s Oscars’ International Feature Film Award.”
A crime thriller, Santosh, directed by British-Indian filmmaker and documentarian Sandhya Suri, born in England, tells the story of a newly widowed woman, played by actress Shahana Goswami, aka Santosh Saini, who takes up a job in the police department after her husband passes away. She is part of an investigation into a murder case of a young girl.
The film premiered at Cannes 2024 in the Un Certain Regard section earlier this year.
Sandhya previously received praise for her 2005 documentary ‘I for India’ and 2018 documentary ‘Around India with a Movie Camera’.
Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor reacted to the news and called it “Utterly astonishing”.
How utterly astonishing that a Hindi language film with an Indian cast is the UK‘s official entry for the Oscars! Guess we should be rooting for it too!https://t.co/BoArRcsscP
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 27, 2024
Tharoor’s X post read, “How utterly astonishing that a Hindi language film with an Indian cast is the UK‘s official entry for the Oscars! Guess we should be rooting for it too!”
Santosh will now compete with Laapataa Ladies. Let’ the best film win!
