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It’s hard to move away from the territory of trauma that Mahesh Bhatt perennially creates for his characters. His protagonists suffer because they allow themselves the luxury of feeling and hurting in an utterly self-centred way.In a marked departure from the sacrificial mother figures of our movies, the film’s central character Nisha (played with gut-wrenching brutal honesty by Shahana Goswami) is shown to be a rich man’s mistress not because of her kid brother but because, as she roars in one of the narrative’s soul-piercing highest-pitched sequences, she has gotten so used to luxuries she can’t stand in queue for buses any more.

Jashnn, like Mahesh Bhatt’s Jannat before it, wallows in the transparent hunger of today’s lifestyle and how far individuals are ready to go in pursuit of the next thrill. At its heart, Jashnn is a simple story about four...

Confession time: I love Shahana Goswami’s work. For my time and attention, she is one of the most undervalued actors around, her spectrum of performances from Rock On to this new series is worth a slow clap.

Four Years Later, written by Mithila Gupta, Nicole Reddy and S. Shakthidharan demonstrates impressive writing glimpses enough to keep me watching till the final eight episode, but not enough to not question some of the marital and moral decision taken by the couple.

Why for example, does the selfwilled anti-doormat protagonist Sridevi (Goswami) choose to silently suffer her father-in-law’s bullying when her husband leaves for Sydney for further medical studies soon after their marriage?

We are told from the start she is no walkover and she knows she is getting into a marriage of mismatches.

Early in the storytelling she orders herself two scoops of different flavours of icecream while her...

When & Where To Stream Shahana Goswami’s Indo-Australian Series Four Years Later? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

The wait is almost over, as the eight-part Indo-Australian romance drama Four Years Later is set to premiere in India soon. The series tells a touching story about two people bound by marriage but separated by time, distance, and changing priorities.

This Indo-Australian captures the emotional shift that occurs when dreams, responsibilities, and self-discovery take centre stage. Shahana Goswami leads the show with a performance full of grace, capturing the silent struggles of a woman finding her voice in the middle of change.

When & Where To Watch Four Years Later?

The series will stream in India on Lionsgate Play from July 11, 2025. It originally premiered on Sbs in Australia in 2024 and was widely appreciated for its storytelling and portrayal of real-life situations. The show runs across eight episodes and will be available in English.

Trending The Great Indian Kapil Show...

Subhash KmJha lists five series that are now streaming on Amazon Prime that are a Must Watch!

Zwigato (2022):

Applause Entertainment and Nandita Das’s seriously underrated film about a food-delivery boy during Covid, had Shahana Goswami delivering a knockout performance as the supportive resourceful wife of her suddenly-jobless husband. Is there anything Shahana can’t do? In Zwigato, Kapil Sharma as a Covid-crushed delivery-boy delivers a performance that is keenly observant of reality: the languorous paunchy body language , the endless rounds on two-wheelers, handling difficult insulting customers at work , an invalid mother and two children at home…Kapil brings the entire force of destiny down on his character’s shoulder without making him a cry baby. There is a beautiful moment where Manas put his head on his ailing mother’s lap. His wife Pratima walks in, sees the mother and son together, a walks out quietly. This is...

Director Abhinay Deo reminisces with Subhash K Jha about making the thriller 2011’s Game– a film he says is special and one he is very proud of.

How do you look back on this intriguing thriller?

Game has always been a special film for me. It was the second film I shot, but it was released first. Game was a disaster at the box office, while exactly three months later released Delhi Belly, my actual first film, which ended up being one of the most successful films of that year.

So would you have preferred Delhi Belly to be your first release?

It was an amazing experience and a humbling one to taste bitter failure and sweet success for a debutant in a span of three months. However, Game taught me more than Delhi Belly did, as failure always is a better teacher than success is.

Game was a watchable...

Subhash K Jha, in another great installment of This Day That Year, revisits the Abhinay Deo directed Game as the murder-mystery clocks 14 Years.

Credit must go to director Abhinay Deo and writer Althea Delmas Kaushal for crafting a jigsaw that would have made Agatha Christie smile. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say they don’t make movies like this anymore. Stylishly crafted, cunning in plot, and nubile in its narrative thrust, Game is one of the most aesthetically mounted Hindi films in recent times. Huge efforts and resources have gone into shooting the murder mystery in places where intrigue seems infinite, escape seems undesirable, and redemption appears as distant as the sound of the waves splashing against rocks that have centuries of stories to tell.

Welcome to the Greek island of Samos. Anupam Kher, looking pricey in his tycoon’s avatar invites four of the most distinguished elitist-outlaws on this side of Charles Sobhraj.

Abhishek Banerjee Virtual Bharat is proud to announce their upcoming feature film, Mahasangam, a powerful exploration of family, legacy, and music, set amidst the world’s largest gathering of humanity – the Mahakumbh. The film delves into the complex dynamics of a father, son, and daughter caught in a poignant struggle over a musical inheritance, offering an evocative story of love, conflict, and the power of tradition.

The film stars an outstanding cast featuring Abhishek Banerjee, Neeraj Kabi, Shahana Goswami in the lead roles. Mahasangam is directed by the visionary Bharat Bala, renowned for his evocative storytelling and cinematic style. The film is enriched by the musical genius of A.R. Rahman.

Speaking about the film, director Bharat Bala said, “Mahasangam is Virtual Bharat and my tribute to the world’s largest gathering of humanity, the Maha Kumbh Mela, that concluded today. This is a story that delves into complex layers of human emotions,...

Sunita Rajwar and Shahana Goswami lead a sinewy crime drama as a cynical veteran and a wide-eyed rookie who has inherited her late husband’s job

Writer-director Sandhya Suri has made a tense, violent and politically savvy crime procedural set in India: a film about sexism, caste bigotry and Islamophobia that doubles as a study in the complex relationship between two female cops, a cynical veteran and a wide-eyed rookie. They are terrifically played by Sunita Rajwar and Shahana Goswami in what is almost a gender-switched Indian version of Training Day.

Suri is a film-maker who 20 years ago gave us a tremendous personal essay movie I for India, and this is her fiction-feature debut, which reportedly started as a documentary project inspired by public demonstrations about the gang-rape and murder of Jyoti Singh. It centres on the Indian convention of “compassionate appointment”: the dependent widow of a public official...

Written and directed by award-winning British-Indian debut filmmaker, Sandhya Suri’s film, Santosh, starring Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar is all set to release in UK cinemas this Friday on 21st March 2025. Vertigo Releasing and Civic Studios distribute the critically acclaimed crime thriller.

Santosh delves into a mystery. When a government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India she is in for a shock. When a low-caste girl is murdered, Santosh is pulled into the investigation by charismatic feminist inspector Sharma what happens is a tale of transformation both bad and good, in this must see film.

In preparation for writing Santosh, Suri researched female police constables, learning of the government scheme of appointment on compassionate grounds’, meaning that eligible dependents of deceased police officers can inherit their jobs. Suri spoke to many widows, which provided...

Once again, in his terrific This Day That Year series, Subhash K Jha revisits a unique film. This time, he is looking back at Applause Entertainment-Nandita Das’s 2023 Zwigato, and we hear from Das about this excellent film starring Kapil Sharma.

Applause Entertainment and Nandita Das’s seriously underrated film about a food-delivery boy during Covid had Shahana Goswami delivering a knockout performance as the supportive, resourceful wife of her suddenly jobless husband. Is there anything Shahana can’t do?

In Zwigato, Kapil Sharma as a Covid-crushed delivery boy delivers a performance that is keenly observant of reality: the languorous paunchy body language , the endless rounds on two-wheelers, handling difficult insulting customers at work, an invalid mother and two children at home… Kapil brings the entire force of destiny down on his character’s shoulder without making him a crybaby.

There is a beautiful moment where Manas put...

The 18th annual Asian Film Awards (Afa) announced the winners and special award recipients at a ceremony held at the West Kowloon Cultural District’s Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong on March 16, 2025. Sixteen competitive prizes and five honorary prizes were given out. The Afa ceremony featured a glamorous Red Carpet and Award Ceremony attracting participants from all over Asia, and was a great success. At this year’s Afa, the Hong Kong actor-director Sammo Hung served as the jury president leading other jury and voting members composed of filmmakers from around the world in selecting the winners. Daishi Matsunaga, along with fellow director Stanley Kwan, served as presenters.

Here are all the awards and nominees of this year’s edition

Best Film

All We Imagine as Light (India, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)

Black Dog (Mainland China)

Exhuma (South Korea)

Teki Cometh (Japan)

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Hong Kong)

Best...

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light was named best film at 18th Asian Film Awards on Sunday evening (March 16).

The Indian filmmaker attended the ceremony in Hong Kong and accepted the award from filmmaker, martial arts star and Afa jury president Sammo Hung.

Scroll down for full list of winners

It marked nearly 10 months since Kapadia became the first Indian filmmaker to win the Grand Prix at Cannes, where the film was the first Indian feature to play in Competition at the festival for 30 years.

“I’m so happy that we could end our journey here in Hong Kong,...

All We Imagine As Light took home top honors at the 18th Asian Film Awards (Afa), winning the Best Film prize.

Held at the Grand Theatre at the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong, this year’s Afa selection was overseen by legendary Hong Kong actor and Afa jury president Sammo Hung.

“It is a special thing to win this award in Hong Kong, which is also a special place for cinema,” said All We Imagine As Light director Payal Kapadia. “Filmmaking is so challenging. Every film that gets made is a prize. To find the financing and the right collaborators, to keep the vision intact, even distributing the movie — everything is a challenge. But doing it with a wonderful crew makes everything easier.”

Japanese filmmaker Daihachi Yoshida won Best Director for black-and-white absurdist comedy Teki Cometh.

Sean Lau won Best Actor for his role in Papa, directed by Philip Yung.

The 18th Asian Film Awards recognized achievements in regional cinema on Sunday, with Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light winning Best Film. The ceremony, held at the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong, brought together filmmakers from across Asia to celebrate accomplishments in directing, acting, and technical contributions.

Kapadia’s drama, which previously earned the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, marked a milestone for Indian cinema, a country that has often been nominated at the AFAs without securing major wins. On stage, Kapadia credited her lead actors for shaping the film’s impact. “Thank you so much to my lead actors—three incredible artists and human beings. They are the ones who made this film what it is,” she said.

The Best Director award went to Japan’s Yoshida Daihachi for Teki Cometh, a character study that premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival before...

Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s poignant drama All We Imagine as Light went home with the best picture prize Sunday night at the 18th Asian Film Awards. It was the film’s final stop on a ten-month festival and awards season journey that began last May when it won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

“Thank you so much to my lead actors — three incredible artists and human beings. They are the ones who made this film what it is,” Kapadia said from the stage inside Hong Kong’s gleaming Xiqu Centre, where the ceremony was held. “I’m so happy that we could end our journey here in Hong Kong, a city that has meant a lot to me, watching the amazing films from this city over the years.”

Legendary Hong Kong filmmaker and martial arts star Sammo Hung served as president of the jury that selected the winners of the 2025 AFAs,...

Payal Kapadia’s Indian co-production “All We Imagine as Light” won best film at the 18th Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, capping a remarkable journey that began with a Grand Prix win at Cannes last year.

Yoshida Daihachi won best director for “Teki Cometh,” while Sean Lau won best actor for “Papa” and Shahana Goswami best actress for “Santosh.” Sandhya Suri won best new director for “Santosh,” capping a strong year for Indian co-productions at the awards, where the country has been a bridesmaid in recent years.

Honors were evenly spread otherwise, with “Exhuma,” “Stranger Eyes” and “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” all collecting a brace of awards each.

Proceedings kicked off with a performance featuring the composer of the film that is the toast of Asia at the moment – “Ne Zha 2,” Chu Wan Pin, alongside Jonathan Wong.

During the awards, Dr. Wilfred Wong, chair of the Asian Film Awards Academy,...

Irish filmmaker Myrid Carten’s feature documentary A Want In Her scooped the audience award at the 23rd Dublin International Film Festival (Diff) on Sunday, March 2.

The film follows the filmmaker on a search for her missing mother, also won the documentary award. It premiered at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2024.

Scroll down for all winners

“As is true of many of the most important things in life, I didn’t know if this film would work,” said Carten. “Many great people had to take a risk for this film to exist. So it is such a delight to have...

Abhishek Banerjee reveals to Subhash K Jha what secret project he was shooting fr the Kumbh Mela, his upcoming projects plus so much more

Abhishek, what is this secret project you are shooting at Kumbh Mela?

Hi Sir, it is Bharat Bala’s film. A R Rahman is doing the music. I, Shahana Goswami, and Neeraj Kabi are the actors in it.

How has your life changed with success?

Nothing. Just message boxes are fuller than ever! And I don’t have social media managers like the stars do. What has changed is the recognition and love on the streets. It’s overwhelming sometimes, especially the kids. I feel very lucky that now I am known across ages and classes in India and abroad. And this without any paid PR.

More diamonds for the wife and more milk for your cat?

Wife is not into diamonds and Kiwi hates milk.

The critically acclaimed crime thriller, Santosh, written and directed by award-winning British-Indian filmmaker, Sandhya Suri, will be releasing in UK cinemas on 21st March 2025, distributed by Vertigo Releasing and Civic Studios.

Starring Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar; and produced by Mike Goodridge (Love is Strange), James Bowsher (The Night), Balthazar de Ganay (The Summer House) and Alan McAlex (Masaan), the film has garnered unanimous international plaudit, with 14 award nominations and seven wins including a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut By A British Writer, Director Or Producer; British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) win for Best Screenplay; and recognition by the National Board of Review within the Top 10 Independent Films of the Year. The film also earned a nomination at Cannes Film Festival 2024 in the Un Certain Regard category; was nominated for the Sutherland Award for Best Film Feature at BFI London Film Festival; and was the UK’s official submission for...

The International Indian Film Academy (Iifa) Weekend & Awards will be celebrating the historic Silver Jubilee edition, a landmark celebration honouring 25 years of Indian cinema’s global legacy. Set to take place from March 8th to 9th, 2025, in the enchanting Pink City of Jaipur, Rajasthan, this milestone event promises an extraordinary fusion of cinematic artistry and cultural heritage.

The festivities begin on Saturday, March 8th, with Sobha Realty Iifa Digital Awards Co-Presented By Nexa as they make their debut, celebrating the innovative brilliance of Ott and digital entertainment and underscoring Iifa’s embrace of the industry’s evolving landscape. The grand finale unfolds on Sunday, March 9th, with the iconic Nexa Presents Iifa Awards Co-Presented by Sobha Realty, honouring cinematic excellence and celebrating Indian cinema’s profound impact on the global stage.

The nominations for the Iifa Digital and Iifa Awards have been revealed and we have the list! By the...

The BAFTA-nominated, Oscar-shortlisted thriller Santosh, which has earned a perfect 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes is currently playing in New York and Los Angeles. Now, more U.S. audiences will get to see the acclaimed film when it is released in cinemas in numerous major cities this Friday, January 31st.

Directed by Sandhya Suri, the drama features brilliant performances by Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar in the dark and intense film.

Ripped from her life of domesticity, Santosh, a young widow now desperate to support herself, accepts an opportunity to inherit her husband’s job as a police officer in the rural badlands of India. Quickly taken under the wing of Sharma, a charismatic and commanding older female inspector, Santosh begins an investigation into a low-caste girl’s brutal murder that plunges her into a gritty world of crime and corruption, forcing her to confront not only the brokenness of...

The critically acclaimed crime thriller Santosh has now earned a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. Written and directed by Sandhya Suri, the award-winning film is also on the Oscar shortlist for Best International Feature Film.

Speaking about the new BAFTA nomination, Suri said “This is a wonderful honour. Making Santosh has been a long journey, a good decade of plodding, researching, refining and getting ready to make what is quite an ambitious fiction debut in the middle of India, prepping in the peak of summer. The entire team was so deeply committed, they really eased the path for me. After a great reception at Cannes it means a lot to bring Santosh home and have this recognition in the UK. I really hope this nod from Bafta will help drive audiences to come out and see the film when it is released here [UK] in March.

Earning a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes is a feat few filmmakers have achieved. Indeed, many of the most acclaimed films of all time have nevertheless failed to impress at least one certified critic on the website. Therefore, in the rare event that a film does earn a perfect score, it is worth exploring how it managed to win over every critic on Rotten Tomatoes that saw it. One such film is Santosh (2024), a new thriller directed by Sandhya Suri. The film, which centers on a widowed woman who takes her late husband's place on the local police force, is the U.K.'s submission for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards. So far, all 39 critics on Rotten Tomatoes are pretty much unanimous in their praise of both the film's technical elements and its uncompromising themes of sexism, police corruption, and caste discrimination in India.

'Santosh' Is...

While not one of the most popular of the crime drama genre, the rookie police formula is one that's been explored to largely gripping success, the most iconic being the Denzel Washington-led Training Day. However, while Antoine Fuqua's 2001 hit is certainly a thrilling ride, the rookie police movies that always stand out to me are the ones that aim to say something about law enforcement, good or bad, with their story, and Sandhya Suri's Santoshproves to be the perfect vehicle.

Newly widowed Santosh Saini inherits her late husband's position as a police constable in rural Northern India. Under the mentorship of Inspector Sharma, she investigates the murder of a low-caste girl, confronting systemic corruption and societal prejudices.

Release Date  December 27, 2024Rating  RRuntime  128 MinutesGenres  Drama, Thriller, CrimeCast  Prashant Kumar, Shashi Beniwal, Sanjay Bishnoi, Naval Shukla, Shahana Goswami, Sunita RajwarDirector  Sandhya SuriWriters  Sandhya SuriDistributor(s)  Metrograph Pictures

The movie centers the titular Santosh Saini,...

South Korea’s Exhuma has topped the field, earning 11 nominations at the 18th Asian Film Awards, followed by Hong Kong’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In with nine nominations.

Hong Kong martial arts legend Sammo Hung will serve as the jury president for the awards, which feature a selection of 30 films from 25 countries and regions, competing across 16 categories. The awards ceremony will take place on March 16 in Hong Kong.

Directed by Jang Jae-hyun, Exhuma gained nominations for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Newcomer, Best Screenplay, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

Adapted from the novel “City of Darkness” by Yuyi, Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In gained nine nominations, including Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

South Korean box office hit Exhuma and Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In lead the nominations for the 18th Asian Film Awards, with a jury led by martial arts icon Sammo Hung.

Supernatural thriller Exhuma, directed by Jang Jae-hyun, leads the pack with 11 nods followed by Soi Cheang’s action thriller Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In, which received nine nominations.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Both titles were named in the best film category alongside Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine As Light; Guan Hu’s Chinese drama Black Dog,...

The 18th Asian Film Awards, the region’s leading cinema honors, unveiled its 2025 nominations Friday, with South Korea’s horror hit Exhuma leading the pack with 11 nods. Directed by Jang Jae-hyun, the supernatural thriller melds feng shui and shamanistic traditions in a haunting narrative about an ominous grave. The movie was both a critical favorite and a huge theatrical sensation in South Korea, becoming the country’s highest-grossing film of the year. Alongside its best film nomination, the film earned recognition across several major categories, including best director, best actor for Choi Min-sik and best actress for Kim Go-eun.

The Asia Film Awards will return to Hong Kong on March 16 with a glitzy ceremony at the city’s Xiqu Centre in the West Kowloon Cultural District. This year’s lineup of honorees includes 30 films from 25 countries and regions, spanning 16 competitive categories.

The Hong Kong throwback action epic Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In,...

Martial arts legend Sammo Hung has been tapped as jury president for the 18th Asian Film Awards, while South Korean supernatural thriller “Exhuma” and Hong Kong action pic “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” dominate the nominations.

South Korean supernatural thriller “Exhuma,” helmed by director Jang Jae-hyun and marking the return of veteran actor Choi Min-sik, leads with 11 nods including best film, director, actor and actress. The film weaves elements of feng shui and traditional shamanism in its story of an ominous grave investigation.

Hong Kong action film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” follows with nine nominations. Based on Yuyi’s “City of Darkness” novel and set in the 1980s Kowloon Walled City, the film is competing for best film, supporting actor and multiple technical awards.

Soi Cheang’s Hong Kong action film “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” follows with nine nominations. Based on Yuyi’s “City of Darkness...

During a recent Zoom conversation about “Santosh,” the Oscar-shortlisted international feature, director Sandhya Suri was seated comfortably in a large, nest-like wicker chair that was bolted into the ceiling in her London apartment.

“Oh, I love this seat,” she said. “I only have this one chair in this room, and when I invite friends over, we all want to be in this spot. My daughter reads in here, as well. It’s my happy place.”

The serenity of Suri’s calmly floating chair stands in contrast to “Santosh,” her phenomenal, noir-soaked feature directorial debut that follows a female police officer (Shahana Goswami) investigating the murder of a lower-caste girl in Northern India. The film uses its procedural format to mine deeper as a cultural character study.

“Santosh” is the Oscar submission from the United Kingdom, the country which won the Best International Film award with “The Zone of Interest” 11 months ago.

There is a certain ferocity in lead actress Shahana Goswami's lioness eyes that effectively carries her stunning new feature, Santosh, all the way to the harrowing finish line. Goswami's exhausting journey as the eponymous female officer trying to navigate an unwieldy investigation into a woman's rape and murder in rural India might have you holding your breath in tension. After a twisty, unnerving two hours, writer-director Sandhya Suri's great police thriller finally lets you exhale.

There is plenty else to soak up in this suspenseful character study, keeping you guessing at almost every turn — even down to the subtle actions by its at-times unpredictable protagonist. It's an immersive, documentary-like experience that might spike one's blood pressure at certain points, and lose some moviegoers at other points due to the slow-burning nature of the mystery. However, patience is rewarded in this unique tale that takes us to a...

After the riot-induced death of her policeman husband in the badlands of North India, 30-something widow Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) is told she has nothing. Her house, provided by the State, belongs to the State and will be reclaimed, along with nearly everything else she needs to survive. She has no choice but to take advantage of a government program referred to as “compassionate appointment,” in which the bereaved can take on the job of the one they lost. In this case, a housewife becomes an officer of the law overnight.

Meet: the newly minted Constable Santosh. Not long into her tenure she’s forced to face the corruption of fellow officers when a low-caste teenage girl––whose grieving parents had reported her missing and begged local police to find her, only to be laughed out of the station––turns up dead in a well. Evidence that she was raped...

Cannes premiering Santosh from Metrograph Pictures joins Neon’s 2073 in limited release with comedy horror Bloody Axe Wound from Rlj Entertainment/Shudder on several hundred screens for the last weekend of the year. Some of the highest profile films from Searchlight Pictures’ A Complete Unknown to Focus Features’ Nosferatu and A24’s Babygirl and more arrived in theaters on Christmas making for a nice cluster of year-end releases. They’re capping a solid run for indie films in 2024’s recovering post-strike box office.

Italian thriller Vermiglio from Sideshow/Janus Films opened 12/25 on one NYC screen (IFC Center) where it stays, adding LA and Chicago Jan 3. Directed and written by Maura Delpero (Maternal). Premiered at Venice. The distributor’s Latvian animated Flow, which has been an awards season phenomenon, is still out on 107 screens and just passed $2 million – making a run for Sideshow’s highest grosser, Drive My Car at $2.35 million.

Emerging after over a decade of development, Santosh is Sandhya Suri’s first narrative feature after a career in documentary. Shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, representing the UK, the film is inspired by a real program in India where widows are offered their late husband’s jobs to sustain their livelihoods. The story follows the titular Santosh, played with remarkable nuance by Shahana Goswami, as a quiet young woman who steps into her late husband’s role as a police officer. Soon, she takes on a harrowing case––the rape and murder of a teenage girl––guided by a seemingly virtuous mentor, Inspector Geeta Sharma, portrayed with an electrifying charge by Sunita Rajwar.

Both a gripping crime thriller and a poignant character study, Santosh operates in the delicate space between realism and genre storytelling. With her unflinching camera, Suri captures Santosh’s transformation with silences,...

Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami), the heroine of the Indian cop drama Santosh, is a young widow whose husband, a police constable named Raman, was killed on duty. When we first meet her, she is still in grief and faced with a bleak future. Her bitter in-laws don’t want to help her,...

To many audiences across the globe, the plot of the Hindi-language drama “Santosh” — in which a widow takes over her husband’s job as a constable — sounds made up.

But for her debut narrative feature, which competed for the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes earlier this year before earning accolades at festivals like Camerimage, British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri drew directly from Indian law. Specifically, “compassionate grounds” allows the dependent of a government worker to be appointed to a job, including their own, after their death. As the eponymous fictional character (played by Shahana Goswami) investigates the murder of a young girl under the watch of a female superior officer (Sunita Rajwar) with inscrutable aims, what subsequently unfolds in the film is an extraordinary, unflinching portrait of one woman’s reckoning with personal relationships and a professional community in a larger sociopolitical culture historically controlled and dominated by men.

Ahead of the film’s Dec.

Santosh Photo: BBC, BFI, Razor Film Produktion GmbH, Haut et Court, Santosh Film Ltd

British-Indian director Sandhya Suri's Indian set neo-noir, Santosh, is an atmospheric story about a young widow whose husband has died policing a riot. The only way for Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) to keep a roof over her head and be self-sufficient is to accept the offer to inherit her late husband's job and rank. Swapping her life of domesticity for a job as a woman police officer in India's northern badlands, she soon falls under the influence of Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), a female inspector. Their investigation into the murder of a low-caste girl exposes Saini to unrelenting corruption, and before too long she has to answer for her own complicity in an investigation thwarted by duplicitous agendas.

Sandhya Suri Photo: courtesy of Oxfam

Santosh is Suri's narrative feature début, and was developed with...

To be honest, all we imagine as light shone brightly on the ladies this year. Sisterhood ruled in Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light , Kiran Rao’s Laapata Ladies and at year-end in Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls.

In another part of the world, another brilliant female filmmaker Sandhya Suri made some constructive noise on female empowerment with Santosh, a hardhitting tense cops drama with Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar bonding in praise-Vardi Khakee.

These are post-feminist works of unfettered art transcending the limitations of the ‘chick-flick’ genre by focussing on empowered muliebrity far beyond the common feminist tropes : demonization of the male, sexual assault and discrimination and gender biases.

There is a refreshing candour to the language of womanhood shared by the above films.

A pity, only one of them Laapata Ladies got an audience in India. Together the women in front of and...

Filmmaker Sandhya Suri first made her mark in the cinematic world with her award-winning documentaries and short film. Now, the director has turned her lens to feature films with her brilliant, intense drama, Santosh.

Even before the film was released in theatres, Santosh was a huge success, garnering thundering applause from audiences and rave reviews from critics worldwide. Santosh premiered in Un Certain Regard at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and has been screened at the prestigious BFI London Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival this year. The crime thriller boasts a perfect 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Santosh also recently won two British Independent Film Awards for Best Screenplay and Breakthrough Producers and was named one of the Top 5 International Films of 2024 by the National Board of Review. Not only that, Santosh was included on the shortlist for the Oscars for the Best International Feature Film category for the UK.

Midway through Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, the camera tracks a police constable walking down the street. We can’t see who the person is, but we might assume that it’s Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami), as she’s hardly seen out of her khaki uniform since joining the force at the start of the film. It’s only when we’ve followed the person all the way back to the police station and found Santosh already sitting there that we realize we’ve actually been tailing some other officer. And in this moment of confusion, as the camera shifts its gaze to Santosh, you might miss the suspect being tortured by a pair of officers on the other side of the room.

That series of scenes is a neat distillation of the themes that Santosh explores across its runtime. This is a film about how violence and corruption can become...

Inspiring or irritating, empowering or exploitative, maternal or manipulative — with many shades of gray in between — female mentorship is a common dynamic in many of 2024’s most affecting stories.

In films as diverse as “All We Imagine as Light,” “Babygirl,” “Emilia Pérez,” “The Girl With the Needle,” “Inside Out 2” “The Last Showgirl,” “My Old Ass” and “The Substance,” women develop relationships with one another that alternately risk harm as much as they mean to be helpful, forge camaraderie out of competition or simply provide a mirror reflecting — frequently uncomfortably — who they once were or may one day become.

Inspired by its writer-director’s curiosity about multi-generational friendship, Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” tells the stories of three nurses — Prabha (Kani Kusruti), Anu (Divya Prabha) and Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) — navigating the sociopolitical complexities of Mumbai. “When there is a lot of difference in the generations, there is a sort of conflict that,...

Director Sandhya Suri, in her debut feature film, Santosh, brings to audiences a taut thriller filled with the darkness of the world. Featuring brilliant performances by Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, Santosh begins its theatrical release on December 27th. The film, which was just included in the Academy Awards Best International Film category shortlist, has also received acclaim at prestigious festivals, including TIFF. Santosh boasts a perfect 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and was named by Vogue as one of the best movies of 2024.

Let’s set the tone: Ripped from her life of domesticity, Santosh, a young widow now desperate to support herself, accepts an opportunity to inherit her husband’s job as a police officer in the rural badlands of India. Quickly taken under the wing of Sharma, a charismatic and commanding older female inspector, Santosh begins an investigation into a low-caste girl’s brutal murder. The case...

Sandhya Suri’s award-winning new thriller Santosh has been picked by the Academy Awards for its shortlist for Best International Feature Film of the year. It is one of only 15 films selected for the Oscar shortlist in this category out of 85 total films submitted by countries all around the world.

The film features brilliant performance by Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar and is set to hit theatres on December 27th.

Ripped from her life of domesticity, Santosh, a young widow now desperate to support herself, accepts an opportunity to inherit her husband’s job as a police officer in the rural badlands of India. Quickly taken under the wing of Sharma, a charismatic and commanding older female inspector, Santosh begins an investigation into a low-caste girl’s brutal murder that plunges her into a gritty world of crime and corruption, forcing her to confront not only the brokenness of the system around her,...

Kanu Behl’s third feature film, Despatch, offers an unflinching and incisive exploration of the murky nexus between politics, media, and business, seen through the lens of a crime journalist. The film invites us to step into the fraught world of journalism circa 2012, a time when idealism often found itself buried alongside victims or auctioned off to the highest bidder. It paints a vivid picture of a profession besieged by gatekeepers, threats of violence, and other forms of thuggish silencing. The story lays bare the stark reality: battling a corrupt individual in power reveals that power itself is a hydra, with each head—no matter how distinct—belonging to the same body. This chilling truth underscores the systemic nature of the issues within the media landscape. At its heart, the film delves into the fundamental duality that haunts every journalist: the intoxicating thrill of chasing a “good story” juxtaposed against...

There are many investigative dramas involving journalists that stumble upon stories unexpectedly and end up discovering a mountain worth of data that could inconvenience some very important people. Despatch is one such story coming from the impeccable writer-director Kanu Behl. The lead of the show is a crime beat journalist who finds an interesting story and wants to dig up more intel to make it a headline for his newspaper. There are many characters that get involved in his quest to get to the bottom of his investigation and find legitimate answers.

Spoilers Ahead

Joy Bag

Actor par extraordinaire, Manoj Bajpayee is Joy Bag, the leading crime beat journalist with ‘Despatch,’ the daily newspaper. Despatch is struggling financially, but initially Joy is unaffected by it until he realizes there are ownership related matters that might render him out of work. Joy is keen on getting to the bottom of the...

Despatch Film Ending Explained, Joy’s Death, Tragic Conclusion. (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Despatch, released on Zee5 on 13th December, is an investigative slow burn starring Manoj Vajpayee and Shahana Goswami in pivotal roles. The film is about a journalist who gets information about a scam that has taken place. The film, directed by Kanu Behl, is two-and-a-half-hour-long slow burn with complicated plot points and many characters being introduced in a topsy-turvy journey for a protagonist named Joy, an aging journalist at the crossroads of the onset of digital media. While working on a story, he finds himself looking for a file with information about a 2G spectrum scam involving a company named Gdr and many other influential people. As the movie unfolds and the layers peel off the fraud, Joy keeps searching for that one file he thinks could be the most significant breakthrough for him. Here is what happens...

[The following story contains spoilers from Santosh.]

Sandhya Suri’s Santosh won two British Independent Film Awards on Sunday.

Not only were Balthazar de Ganay and James Bowsher honored in the breakthrough producer category, but Suri also took home the best screenplay award for her feature film debut.

The British-Indian director’s background is firmly in documentaries and Santosh, in its very early stages, was going to be just that: a forensic look at the rife violence against women in India, the deeply embedded corruption within its police force and the powerless women forced to watch on.

“I couldn’t figure out how to do it as a documentary form because it was just too horrific,” Suri tells The Hollywood Reporter about the U.K.’s Oscars submission for best international feature. “I dropped the project.”

But it was the brutal and shocking case of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh, who was gang raped by the driver of the...

Kanu Behl as a director is a mystery, in that his delving into genres and their templates, especially the neo-noir, goes so far off that it starts feeling like an edgier approximation of actually cool ideas. Both Behl and co-writer Ishani Banerjee’s idea is sound, i.e., to explore the nexus of journalism, the 2G scam, and the underworld through the perspective of a cog in the proverbial journalism machine: the old, grizzled newsman. Except, unlike most of these newsmen in movies related to journalism, Joy Bag (Manoj Bajpayee) in “Despatch” (2024) is not a righteous man, carrying a torch about the truth of journalism.

Bag is a relic of the past, comfortable in using technology as a means of communication (Nokia phones with Qwerty keypads), but miffed at the proliferation of technology creeping into his workplace, as that would entail news becoming more and more dependent on instantaneous reportage,...

Exclusive: Fresh from winning two awards at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs) on Sunday, Cannes title Santosh has sewn up an eagerly awaited deal for distribution in India.

PVR Inox Pictures, the film releasing arm of the largest film exhibition company in India PVR Inox Ltd, has acquired the Indian rights to the Hindi-language feature, which is the UK’s official Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film category.

MK2 is selling the film and cut the deal with PVR Inox. Pic is written and directed by Sandhya Suri, and stars Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, and is produced by Good Chaos in association with Suitable Pictures (India) and in co-production with Haut Et Court (France) and Razor Film (Germany).

The official synopsis reads: “Ripped from her life of domesticity, Santosh, a young widow now desperate to support herself, accepts an opportunity to inherit her husband’s job as...

Manoj Bajpayee is familiar with the crime genre. His breakout role was that of Bhiku Mhatre in one of the greatest Hindi films of all time, Satya, where we got a peek into a version of Mumbai’s underworld. Then he was in Shool, which focused on crime and politics in Bihar. He played Veerendra Pratap in Raajneeti, which was an amalgamation of Mahabharat and The Godfather. He was integral to the evolution of the landscape of Hindi cinema that was triggered by Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur duology. He is currently the face of the Silence franchise. Through The Family Man and Killer Soup, he has shown he is incredibly comfortable with flexing his acting chops through the episodic format on the small screen. So, I think it’s pretty normal to be hyped about his next project. But I’d advise you to keep your excitement at bay,...

Documentarian and narrative filmmaker Sandhya Suri recalls being struck by an image taken during protests over the horrific gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh by six men on a bus in Delhi.

“In this photograph there was a line of female police officers standing against a crowd of ferociously angry women. There was one police officer, and she has this amazing expression on her face, really enigmatic. Who is that woman, what is she thinking? She has a police uniform that holds so much power especially in India,” she wondered. “What was it like to be her?”

It was an idle thought at the time but which then took hold of the South London-based British-Indian filmmaker who wanted to make a film that focused on violence against women.

Following a decade of research and workshops at the Sundance Labs, Suri debuted Santosh, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival...