How fantastic that British-Indian diaspora director Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, in Hindi, is UK’s entry for the Oscar for Best International Feature. When I worked for the Dubai Film Festival, we had shown My Pure Land, British-Pakistani director Sarmad Masud’s Pakistan-set feature in Urdu, that had also been selected as UK’s entry for the 2018 Oscars, so Santosh is not the UK’s first South Asia-set, Oscar entry. It’s an amazing Women Rising year for Indian/diaspora women filmmakers, with Sandhya Suri’s Santosh as UK’s Oscar entry, Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies as India’s Oscar entry, and Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light also in the Oscar race. 

Santosh, a UK-Germany-France-India co-production, was earlier in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard, and at the Toronto International Film Festival, for whom I’m Senior Programme Advisor, South Asia. It is also selected for the BFI London Film Festival, and won Best Debut Feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Suri’s previous work includes the marvellous documentary I for India (Sundance, 2006), and the short The Field, which won Best Short at the Toronto International Film Festival and a BAFTA Nomination in 2018.