Laapataa Ladies, India's official submission for the 97th Academy Awards' Best International Feature Film category, has been eliminated from the race for Oscars 2025 consideration. The Kiran Rao directorial may have lost the race, but another Hindi-language film that did make it to the shortlist is the United Kingdom's submission, Santosh. What is this film about, who are the people behind it, and how has Shahana Goswami reacted to the shortlist? Here's all you need to know about the Oscars 2025 shortlisted feature film.

Santosh’s plot-line

The Sandhya Suri-directed movie is about a Hindu widow who acquires her husband’s position as a police constable through a government program. She finds herself entangled in institutional politics as she tries to work with veteran detective Inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) on a brutal murder case involving a teenage girl from the lower-caste Dalit community.