Who is this? What is she feeling? She’s got this uniform, which has so much authority, especially in India, and yet the feeling of being powerless. It’s then that I got interested. I thought here’s a story. I’m a documentary maker, not a genre filmmaker, so I was wondering how to do it. How do I make that mine? It then became all about that.Shahana Goswami told me that she likes the idea of documentary filmmakers getting into fiction, and the kind of realism that can then come to the fiction feature. One can see that in the way you have recreated specific places, used certain spaces, created a universe…The universe is so important. Initially, I was worried about the length but all the first responses to the first cut of Santosh, which was long, were about never having seen India quite like that before. It was about a type of place, sort of slightly ugly, semi-rural. These are my favourite places in India. And then there was the fact of real people in those spaces. The cobbler is the real cobbler. You can’t get an extra doing that. It doesn’t work. To have all those real people, in the spaces that are their spaces, makes me feel safe in making fiction.Where did you shoot it in India?It was shot in and around Lucknow.Did you spend a lot of time with the cops to get that universe right? Was it easy to gain access? How was it to spend time with them?It was fantastic. I’m a documentary maker. So, I’m missing the cops here in Cannes. They should have been watching the film here with me. I also worked for a long time with police anthropologists. I spent enough time and had so many conversations that I feel that I can stand behind what I’m saying about the police in this film. For me, living outside India, yet making films about India is my way to have a deep relationship with my country.There is a definite progression to your lead character—loss of innocence, a bit of a power trip yet being circumscribed by the hierarchy and patriarchy…It is also about Santosh accepting the bargain. You get this and I’ll take that in return. It’s not shocking. This is how India functions for me. Let’s negotiate around this. That’s why, for me, Santosh is never fully innocent when she joins the police. The film is about this deep, dark theatre of policing. Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) talks about it in the car. That’s why I have used Bollywood music. There is a theatricality to policing, the roles being played, the pressure being put.
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