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Santosh, a new film about modern India that you should not miss

March 24, 2025

     By Duncan Green     

FP2P’s blogger emeritus Duncan Green recommends Santosh, a film that anyone interested in India or social justice should not miss

If you get the chance, please go and see the new film Santosh. It’s an extraordinarily rich picture of modern India, managing to interweave and explore its faultlines of caste, gender and religion without being hectoring or preachy. It’s also a great film, with complex characters (especially the lead women, who are amazing) interacting in ways that continually surprise, plus some great casting of local residents from the film sites in some quite significant roles.

I went to a preview and Q&A last night with Sandhya Suri, the director – an old friend from Oxfam who once made a great promo film for my first book at Oxfam, but has since gone on to greater things. The film took her 10 years to bring to the screen, 44 days to film and (astonishingly) is her first venture into fiction. A five star review in yesterday’s Observer is not bad for a debut.

The only sad thing is that, predictably, the Indian censors are all over it, demanding so many cuts that nothing is left, so it won’t be showing in cinemas there.

The question I did not get to ask her in the Q&A is – does she think this film could have been made by a born and raised Indian? Sandhya is second generation Brit, raised in Darlington, which I think allows her to do an amazing job of bridging between the nuance of India, and what outside audiences can take in. In Q&A she described the film as two tier, with lots of references only Indians will understand, but a clear story line for others (a bit like Disney’s brilliance at having two tiers for adults and kids, I guess). I’ve seen the same phenomenon in great development books by insider-outsiders like Yuen Yuen Ang and Naomi Hossain.

Here’s an interview with Sandhya on Channel 4 news.

Please go and see it, and tell your friends. If you’re reading this on Monday, she has a Q&A at the Curzon in Bloomsbury, London this evening

Here’s the trailer

March 24, 2025
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Duncan Green
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