A diverse line-up compiled by the 49th Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) brings Santosh to the city’s cinephiles: a powerful, feminist critique of modern Indian society. Alongside premiering at Cannes in Un Certain Regard, the feature debut directed by Sandhya Suri is set to be the U.K.’s entry for the 2025 Oscars best international feature film category as well.
The story follows Santosh (Shahana Goswami), a newly widowed woman who inherits her husband’s job as a police constable. When a young Dalit girl is raped and murdered, Santosh is assigned to investigate the case under the guidance of Geeta (Sunita Rajwar), an inspector who helps the rookie cop navigate a maze of corruption and oppression. As the brutality of the police system peels its layers back for Santosh to see, she starts to question her own role in perpetuating its injustices.
What strikes the viewer is the film’s exploration of empathy in conscious individuals and we question whether it is in and of itself enough to overcome systems of oppression. As Santosh delves deeper into the case, she is confronted with the harsh realities of a system that corrupts even the most empathetic individuals in pursuit of justice. Santosh’s appointment in the police force on compassionate grounds is, on paper, an act that empowers her to earn a living for herself and be independent of her family in the wake of her husband’s death. However, this newfound empowerment still does not take away the fact that she is a woman employed by and living under systems that are highly patriarchal.
Entrusted with the Dalit girl’s murder case then leads Santosh to seek the noble purpose of bringing a perpetrator to justice. The Dalit struggle of not being heard nor served by the system is not news to Santosh, as she is constantly surrounded by casteist beliefs that undervalue Dalit rights. Santosh sees the humiliation faced by the deceased girl’s father in having to report his missing daughter to a cobbler instead of cops. Despite her efforts to help, the film takes a dark turn as Santosh’s empathy becomes a means of exploitation for Geeta, who has a more sinister take on solving the case.
Against the backdrop of societal fault lines — gender, caste, and religion in India — the film with its haunting silence, is visually striking in its stillness. The slow pace forces us to notice haunting details: earrings torn off the young girl’s corpse, white teeth on a boy’s bruised face, blood being washed away from a dead husband’s uniform. There are sounds but the soul of the film possesses a heavy silence. Goswami embodies this quietude as Santosh, while Rajwar delivers a compelling portrayal of Geeta, a character possessing a bigoted sense of justice. Currently, Santosh is banned from being released in Indian cinemas by censors on the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) who are against the negative light in which the Indian police is depicted.