Meet the British-Indian filmmakers making waves with tales set in India

What does it take to tell a good tale set in India? Effort, time, immersion, and a good story. Take a look.

Constable Santosh and her superior officer Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) are in a jeep, driving across rural north India. Sharma is smoking. Asha Bhosle singing Waapus kardo meri neend plays in the background. The scene is set. Sharma starts talking about the parallels between cinema and police work. Santosh, who was thrown in at the deep-end of the police pool, is listening intently.

A still from Sandhya Suri’s Santosh (2024).

British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s debut feature Santosh (2024; Hindi), features a stellar Shahana Goswami as a widow who inherits her late husband’s job as a police officer. The film premiered in the UnCertain Regard section at Cannes, and is the third in Suri’s films set in India (the previous two were documentaries).

A still from Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight (2024).

There is also Sister Midnight (2024), directed by the British-Indian Karan Kandhari and starring Radhika Apte. Set in a one-room slum dwelling, it follows Uma as she discovers that the man she has married is bumbling and inept, and as she slowly unleashes the rage that has built up within her, over the life she did not choose and cannot change.

The film was screened in the Director’s Fortnight section at Cannes. Catch them if you can.