UK nominates Santosh for international race

The United Kingdom has selected Santoshan Indian crime film by director Sandhya Suri, to represent the country at the 2025 Oscars in the best international feature film category.

Shahana Goswami plays Santosh, a driven young Hindu widow who inherits her husband’s police job through a government scheme. She finds herself embroiled in institutional corruption even as she adjusts to working with Inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), a brutal and seasoned detective, on a brutal murder case involving a teenage girl from the lower-caste Dalit community.

Santosh premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes this year, where it was quickly acquired for North America by Metrograph Pictures. The Hollywood ReporterThe review calls the film “gripping and engrossing,” and praises Suri’s screenplay. “Instead of unwieldy expository dialogue, Suri relies on conversations between Santosh and Sharma to illuminate the forces—a discriminatory society, a corrupt workplace—that might push these two women into a kind of reluctant Faustian alliance.”

Santosh marks Suri’s narrative feature film debut following her successful documentary Me for India (2005) and its short drama film The landwhich won the Best International Short Film award at Toronto in 2018 and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2019.

The UK has had three films nominated for Oscars in the best international feature film category and won its first Oscar this year with Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama. The area of ​​interest won the highest distinction.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will reveal its 2025 Oscar shortlist, including the nominees for best international feature film, on December 17. Oscar nominations will be announced on January 17, 2025. The 97th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 2.