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.