New Delhi: British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s film Santosh, which was the United Kingdom’s international feature film submission to the Oscars, has been stopped from releasing commercially in India by the Central Board of Film Certification which had a problem with the film’s “negative portrayal of police.”
Santosh is set in rural north India, and stars Shahana Goswami as a widow who inherits her late husband’s police constable job and has to investigate the rape and murder of a Dalit girl.
The Guardian has reported on the censor board’s refusal, quoting Suri who said that it asked for “a list radical cuts so lengthy and wide-ranging that they would be impossible to implement.”
Suri said that although she did try to make it work, it was ultimately far too difficult to “make those cuts and have a film that still made sense, let alone stayed true to its vision.”
It was initially slated to release in India on January 10 this year. The film got rave reviews after it had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival last year. It also got a BAFTA Award nomination in the category Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.
Calling the decision “disappointing and heartbreaking,” Suri noted that she did not believe there was anything sensationalist about her film.
“I don’t feel my film glorifies violence in a way that many other films focusing on the police have done,” she said.
