Showing posts with label Bend It Like Beckham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bend It Like Beckham. Show all posts
Global boom in women’s football sparked the idea for Bend It Like Beckham sequel-Gurinder Chadha
2:50 PM
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; December 2, 2025)
British filmmaker of Indian origin Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham (BILB) was a game-changer that brought a fresh, spirited take on Punjabi culture and Bollywood to western cinema in 2002. Chadha’s films paved the way for diverse storytelling long before Bridgerton made interracial love stories mainstream. Her upcoming project, Christmas Karma — a Bollywood-inspired adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol starring Kunal Nayyar — continues that tradition. Currently in Mumbai, Chadha spoke with Bombay Times about the much-anticipated BILB sequel, her love for Bollywood and telling stories of immigrants. Read on...
‘Bend it Like Beckham sequel is in the works’
Well, I am exploring the idea. I loved working with Eva Longoria on Christmas Karma, and we were talking about BILB because Eva co-owns several football clubs. I was never interested in returning to Bend It Like Beckham because it’s such a special film for so many people, but the incredible growth of women’s football around the world has made me excited to return to this world. So many international players have told me that Bend It Like Beckham inspired them to play, so I want to celebrate women’s football and look at the challenges that are still there for women to thrive on an equal playing field. I’m excited to bring back all of our beloved characters and see where they are in their lives now. Can you imagine? Jess Bhamra in her forties!
Your Bollywood twist to classic tales started with Bride and Prejudice (adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice). People speak of Bridgerton and inclusivity now, but you did it two decades ago with a diverse casting and a cross-cultural storyline. Do you think the film deserved more love at the time?
What can I say, I am always ahead of the game (smiles). The world takes time to catch up with me, but it’s okay. Bride & Prejudice is very popular around the world. I was surprised — I was in LA and had gone for dinner to my friend’s place, and her niece (an Italian girl around 12) told me that when she and her friends have sleepovers, this is the movie they watch and the one they dance to as well.”
It’s that time of the year when people binge on holiday movies. What’s your take on this genre of films?
I feel it’s like a soothing balm for a lot of people. I grew up celebrating Christmas in England as a child, with stockings and cookies. My father would place carrots and whiskey out for Santa Claus. Then he would get up in the morning and say, ‘Look, Santa came and drank my whiskey!’ And we would exclaim, ‘Oh my God! Santa drank your whiskey!’ It was party time, where we all ate together. That was our version of Christmas. So, I was going to make my unique version with a holiday movie that celebrated Christmas the way we did. I am super happy because I have the first Christmas bhangra song in the world in my movie.
The anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in the west. Your film, Christmas Karma , an adaptation of A Christmas Carol with a Bollywood twist, tells the story through the lens of an immigrant. Why do you think it is so important to tell immigrant stories?
It’s all about economics. The first thing that people do when things go down is blame the immigrants. It’s a worldwide phenomenon. The problem in England is that there are no manufacturing jobs. The people at large don’t have the educational qualifications to do the kind of jobs that they would like and earn the kind of money that people who are educated and work hard have. So there are scapegoats with nowhere to run. My children and their generation see race in a very different way. They actually don’t see colour. Times are changing, but I also feel there is something called the English culture. I grew up with it. For some people, it is also important to have English culture and traditions. We should uphold our traditions, but not lose theirs either. So, this Christmas film is from a nation of both cultures and also about what Christmas means to someone like me, or say, Jess Bhamra from Bend It Like Beckham, and how she would be celebrating with her family. It’s a very British interpretation, and I think the message and meaning of Christmas is to give thanks, to do charity and to be kind.
You have worked with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Huma Qureshi and now Kunal Nayyar. Which Indian actor would you love to collaborate with next?
I want to work with Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan. There are so many great actors in India that I’d love to work with. If I ever get a chance, I want to make a Punjabi film. I do have a subject, and I am talking to someone. Let’s see if I can make it happen. I’d love to make a film in India in an Indian language. I have done so many crossover films now, it would be a great experience to do something different.
On Virat Kohli settling well in London
Gurinder met Virat Kohli at a charity event in London. Does she follow cricket and can someone like him be the centre of her film in the near future, given his global fan following?
She replied, “I think it’s his wife (Anushka) we need to ask. She’s the actor. We met at a charity sporting event and there was a lot of security around him. At one point, I tapped him on his shoulder and he just turned around and said ‘Oh ma’am, ma’am!’ And he called me ma’am, Oh My Lord! And then we got out and he told me, he loves London and he’s settling in well. So that was a nice interaction. My father loved cricket but I am not an expert. I think a true cricket lover should make a film about Virat – it would be a smash!”
I don’t make films for bigoted racists or colonialists-Gurinder Chadha
9:40 AM
Director Gurider Chadha and producer Anushka Shah
As Gurinder Chadha’s Christmas Karma gets ready to arrive in India, the British filmmaker reflects on her growing up in Southall, carrying her Indian heritage everywhere and the sisterhood she feels with her peers Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta
Priyanka Sharma (MID-DAY; December 7, 2025)
It’s been two weeks since Gurinder Chadha released her upcoming feature, Christmas Karma, in the UK, the country where she lives. It’s a week before she releases the film in India, the country she carries with her everywhere. Like her film, Chadha has always found her belonging there and here.
So, as we sit with her, in a Mumbai suburb club, to talk about the film, we can’t help but ask her, “What’s home for you?” “Southhall is my home,” Chadha replies promptly, while browsing through her phone gallery to show us the street she grew up in.
“And I always end up going back to those streets. I was there last week and I did a little activity with local school children to open their Christmas festival. I saw one particular area where the first Indian shop in Southall opened, where my parents used to go. Next to it was a playground where I played as a little girl,” the filmmaker shares with a child-like excitement.
Her love for her British roots and Indian origin is reflected throughout her filmography. Christmas Karma is no different, in that context. But something else is different this time, Chadha says. “When I adapted Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice (as Bride & Prejudice), no one asked why Gurinder Chadha should do this. But because the country’s moved a bit to the right, there are people who feel emboldened, and they are asking, ‘Why should Gurinder Chadha do Charles Dickens? How dare she make a film on Christmas? It’s our holiday’.”
In such times, a film like Christmas Karma that puts an Indian immigrant in the UK at the centre of the story is only timely. Chadha says, “There’s a fight going on for who decides what British cinema is and whose voice is considered to be British or not. It’s really important that those questions are being asked at a time when racism is on the increase. I make films for those fighting the good fight, ones who talk about inclusivity. I don’t make films for bigoted racists or colonialists.”
But it’s not to say that the director doesn’t feel isolated at times. “Sitting here, we’re all Indian women, right? I’m not anything unusual to you. In England, I’m a complete anomaly. Where are the Indian women? Where are the actual directors?”
That’s a question that does need to be asked. Throughout her career, Chadha has been a force to reckon with when it comes to telling stories of the Indian diaspora, including successes like Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Bride & Prejudice (2004). But there haven’t been voices after her that have been able to make themselves heard and seen. The first thing to understand, Chadha says, is the struggle that theatres in the UK have been facing since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In England, people are saying, ‘It’s a miracle that you’ve got a film made, because there’s so little getting made right now.’ Post-pandemic, it’s been a tough time for all film industries, everywhere. So, that is also something to be kept in mind,” she says. But that just scratches the surface. The bigger obstacle for any South-Asian filmmaker in the west is still rooted in his/her identity.
“When you try and make a film with a person of colour as the lead, it’s very hard because people don’t see it as necessarily as mainstream and commercial as we think it is. And this is when I have proved the opposite with my films. I have examples. I have numbers to support it. I tell them, ‘I don’t understand. Why are you hesitant? Look at the successes.’ I am shocked by the lack of films from the diaspora. I also didn’t make a sequel to Bend It Like Beckham because I felt that that was a film that I couldn’t really emulate,” she says.
But her single-minded pursuit to tell stories of Indian immigrants stems from a personal emotion, which she is not sure motivates the generations of filmmakers that came after. Even Christmas Karma, the adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, is born out of the endeavour, Chadha says, of showing that the struggles of her ancestors, who had to leave their land behind, weren’t in vain.
“Christmas Karma comes from the same wheelhouse as Bend It Like Beckham. It’s a human empowerment movie. It’s about having the muscle memory of knowing that your parents and your grandparents went through some kind of migratory movement. In my case, it was a partition that my grandparents went through. Then my parents were born in East Africa. I was born in Kenya, but I grew up in England. And you carry all that with you. So, the successes of my generation are really about wanting to show that our parents’ lives were worth it. And their struggles were worth it,” she smiles.
And in her endeavour, she always ends up finding allies. Even though the director initially struggled to find investors for Christmas Karma, she eventually found a partner in producer Anushka Shah, whose Civic Studios has backed the project. And if her films have been unifiers for Indians around the world, in her life, she has forged a sisterhood with Indian women, who walk the same path as hers.
One such bond is what she shares with filmmakers Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta. The trio has a WhatsApp group as well, which goes by the name “Behenji Brigade”.
“Mira gave this name. I congratulated her on Zohran’s (Mamdani, Nair’s son) win. I messaged her, ‘Bohot Mubarak, Mira. What wonderful news to wake up to. It is great that my son has such a role model to look up to. Kya baat hai.’ Then Deepa wrote, ‘Bilkul, Mira. Many, many congratulations. Waah Bhai Waah.’ Mira said, ’It’s the dawn of a new day. We’re bursting with joy,’” Chadha shares.
And if there’s another friendship that the filmmaker is proud of, it’s with Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra, who even sang a Hindi cover of George Michael’s Last Christmas for Chadha’s film.
“She is just amazing. She is always sending me messages, where she would say, ‘Keep breaking new ground.’ She doesn’t have to do that. She sang the song to support me. Priyanka is also a woman who left the safety of Hindi cinema and went abroad, and had to knock on doors to get recognition. She did it the hard way. Maybe some people in India don’t see that struggle but I have seen it. I know what it is like for her because I know what it has been like for me.”
I want to bring Bend It Like Beckham 2 before the World Cup-Gurinder Chadha
8:51 AM
Akash Bhatnagar (HINDUSTAN TIMES; November 16, 2025)
Gurinder Chadha is set to give Christmas a Desi twist with her upcoming release Christmas Karma, starring Kunal Nayyar, Billy Porter and Eva Longoria. The film comes six years after her 2019 directorial Blinded By The Light.
Ask her why it took so long, and the 65-year-old says, “There were three years of Covid and lockdown. After that, there was the actors’ strike. It took a while for the film industry in the West to recover, and it still hasn’t fully. You’ll find studios are either making big blockbuster films or streamers are making films. It’s a tough time. The streamers have had a big impact on independent filmmaking globally. But I think it’s picking up.”
The director reveals that Christmas Karma is a musical and her ode to the late Italian-American director Frank Capra. “Every year, I watch Frank Capra’s It's A Wonderful Life (1946) on Christmas. It’s an essential viewing because it’s actually quite like an Indian film. I make my children watch it too, and I sit there and cry. I felt like I wanted to make a film that made me feel like that. So, Christmas Karma is my version of Frank Capra’s film,” she says.
One of Gurinder’s most popular works is the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham. Earlier this year, she hinted at working on a sequel. She shares, “I couldn’t think of an idea that will better the movie. But given the success of women’s football, the way the Indian diaspora has flourished around the world, and the impact the film has had socially and culturally, there is a global expectation. So, I’m exploring what we are going to do, how we are going to do it, and I have some good ideas. The FIFA Women’s World Cup is in 2027, and I want to make sure we do something that feels as exciting as being at a match there. Hopefully, we will release it before the World Cup.”
Reflecting on the impact of the film on the Indian diaspora, especially in the West, Gurinder says, “My whole reason to make films was because I wanted to see people on the screen that looked like me in the cinema in the West. It was a very rare occurrence. We were either on the margins or not there at all. So my purpose was to put someone that looked like me right in the centre of the frame.”
Bend It Like Beckham is getting a stage version in North America-Gurinder Chadha
7:58 AM
Gurinder Chadha is also working on a project on female infanticide, British TV dramas, and has Prince Charles to thank for her upcoming pre-Partition film
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 30, 2017)
Brit-Indian director Gurinder
Chadha, who’s currently in India to promote her upcoming film,
Viceroy’s House, (Hindi version titled Partition: 1947) has a lot more
up her sleeve. “I’m working on a fantastic project set in India,
focussing on female infanticide which I’d like to make with an Indian
actor. I also have a deal with Freemantle Media back in UK for some
high-end TV dramas and I’m also exploring some Hollywood scripts,” she
informs, before revealing the piece de resistance, “My 2002 film, Bend
It Like Beckham, which people still love, is getting a stage version in
North America. We’re casting for it at the moment.”
She, however, sighs over the fact that when you make a really successful film, everyone wants you to make it over and over again. “I’m hoping that with Viceroy’s House, I can woo them with a film that has nothing to do with football,” says Gurinder, who having worked with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Bride And Prejudice and Mistress Of Spices is up for the challenge of making a massy Bollywood film. “I had a lot of fun working with Aishwarya during Bride and Prejudice which was my version of a Hindi musical,” she reminisces, adding that when she is in New York now, she often meets Priyanka Chopra and recently bumped into her mother, Madhu Chopra too. “Priyanka’s really smart. She’s doing well in the US as an actor and is even producing. I’m sure we’ll see more of this in the future, with Bollywood actors becoming global stars.”
For now, the focus is on her next. She grew up in the shadow of the Partition with her ancestral home going to the newly formed Pakistan while she grew up in the UK. “I never had a homeland, my family belongs to the old India so we couldn’t relate to Pakistan. My grandparents got a refuge home in India but it wasn’t our ancestral land. In the UK, I was told in history class that the Partition happened because the English decided it was time to leave and since Indians were fighting amongst themselves, Viceroy Mountbatten had no choice but to divide the country to maintain peace."
“It was only in 2008, when I did the BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are? that tracing my roots, I went from England to Kenya, India to Pakistan, where I was greeted with flowers and a shawl. Touched, I wanted to make something on the Partition,” she narrates, saying during her research, she acquired the rights to one of here father’s favourite books, Freedom At Midnight, and spent two years scripting it.
Later, she met Prince Charles at St James Palace and when she told him that she was making a film on his uncle Mountbatten, he recommended Narendra Singh Sarila’s book, The Shadow Of The Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition. “He told me Sarila knew his uncle and the book showed how the British used Mountbatten. Two days later, I flew to India and was hounded by a young actor, who was so desperate to meet me that he was prepared to stand in the hotel lobby all day. He gave me a book his father had written on the Partition. It was the same one Prince Charles had mentioned. A few days later, Narendra Singh Sarila flew to London to meet me and Viceroy’s House was born,” she smiles.
The smile turns to a sigh when she recalls the late Om Puri. “I’m so sad he’s not here to see it. He was so happy when he got the script because a Punjabi woman was making it. Everyday after ‘pack up’ he’d compliment me saying, ‘Bibiji tussi bahut acha kaam kar rahe ho, you’re working really hard.’ He was proud that as a Punjabi I was handling the subject differently,” she flashbacks.
What about Huma Qureshi? The smile returns, “I didn’t know her at all but her audition tape was fantastic. She’s feisty and natural, a hattikatti Punjabi woman!”
She, however, sighs over the fact that when you make a really successful film, everyone wants you to make it over and over again. “I’m hoping that with Viceroy’s House, I can woo them with a film that has nothing to do with football,” says Gurinder, who having worked with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Bride And Prejudice and Mistress Of Spices is up for the challenge of making a massy Bollywood film. “I had a lot of fun working with Aishwarya during Bride and Prejudice which was my version of a Hindi musical,” she reminisces, adding that when she is in New York now, she often meets Priyanka Chopra and recently bumped into her mother, Madhu Chopra too. “Priyanka’s really smart. She’s doing well in the US as an actor and is even producing. I’m sure we’ll see more of this in the future, with Bollywood actors becoming global stars.”
For now, the focus is on her next. She grew up in the shadow of the Partition with her ancestral home going to the newly formed Pakistan while she grew up in the UK. “I never had a homeland, my family belongs to the old India so we couldn’t relate to Pakistan. My grandparents got a refuge home in India but it wasn’t our ancestral land. In the UK, I was told in history class that the Partition happened because the English decided it was time to leave and since Indians were fighting amongst themselves, Viceroy Mountbatten had no choice but to divide the country to maintain peace."
“It was only in 2008, when I did the BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are? that tracing my roots, I went from England to Kenya, India to Pakistan, where I was greeted with flowers and a shawl. Touched, I wanted to make something on the Partition,” she narrates, saying during her research, she acquired the rights to one of here father’s favourite books, Freedom At Midnight, and spent two years scripting it.
Later, she met Prince Charles at St James Palace and when she told him that she was making a film on his uncle Mountbatten, he recommended Narendra Singh Sarila’s book, The Shadow Of The Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition. “He told me Sarila knew his uncle and the book showed how the British used Mountbatten. Two days later, I flew to India and was hounded by a young actor, who was so desperate to meet me that he was prepared to stand in the hotel lobby all day. He gave me a book his father had written on the Partition. It was the same one Prince Charles had mentioned. A few days later, Narendra Singh Sarila flew to London to meet me and Viceroy’s House was born,” she smiles.
The smile turns to a sigh when she recalls the late Om Puri. “I’m so sad he’s not here to see it. He was so happy when he got the script because a Punjabi woman was making it. Everyday after ‘pack up’ he’d compliment me saying, ‘Bibiji tussi bahut acha kaam kar rahe ho, you’re working really hard.’ He was proud that as a Punjabi I was handling the subject differently,” she flashbacks.
What about Huma Qureshi? The smile returns, “I didn’t know her at all but her audition tape was fantastic. She’s feisty and natural, a hattikatti Punjabi woman!”
Rare British honour for Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham
9:58 AM
Subhash K Jha (DNA; May 25, 2014)
The Bend It Like Beckham director has done it again. In a gesture that
makes Indian cinema’s heart swell with pride, her iconic film about a
girl who is determined to play football in the UK, has been selected as
one of the films with a stamp being issued in its honour in the ‘Great
British Film Special Stamp Issue’.
The other globally-celebrated films, which have also been issued as stamps, along with Gurinder Chadha’s films by the British government are A Matter Of Life & Death (1946), Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Chariots Of Fire (1981), Secrets & Lies (1996), A Colour Box (1935), The Night Mail (1936), Love On The Wing (1938), and Spare Time (1939). To have a film by a British director of Indian origin being selected for this honour, is a matter of great pride for India and its motley group of filmmakers who have made a global impact.
When contacted Gurinder was understandably over the moon. Speaking exclusively to After Hrs, she said, “This is awesome! I believe my film changed race relations in this country from an ‘us and them’ culture to more of an ‘us and us’ culture. The proof is right here in the Royal Mail collection.”
Gurinder is now working on a musical version of Bend It Like Beckham. “It will hit the West End next year. It has been a brilliant creative experience for me working with West End musical royalty like Charles Heart, who is doing my lyrics and who also wrote Phantom Of The Opera. I am also working with multi-award winning producer Sonia Friedman who is riding high with Book of Mormon right now.”
Women directors still find it hard to break into big-time movie making. She says, “It’s still a male-dominated industry where they control the finances and distribution and so the female sensibility and audience are not always party to their consciousness, until a Bridesmaids comes along and everyone say. ‘Oh, women go to the cinema too and can generate hit movies!”
The Bend It Like Beckham director has done it again. In a gesture that
makes Indian cinema’s heart swell with pride, her iconic film about a
girl who is determined to play football in the UK, has been selected as
one of the films with a stamp being issued in its honour in the ‘Great
British Film Special Stamp Issue’.The other globally-celebrated films, which have also been issued as stamps, along with Gurinder Chadha’s films by the British government are A Matter Of Life & Death (1946), Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Chariots Of Fire (1981), Secrets & Lies (1996), A Colour Box (1935), The Night Mail (1936), Love On The Wing (1938), and Spare Time (1939). To have a film by a British director of Indian origin being selected for this honour, is a matter of great pride for India and its motley group of filmmakers who have made a global impact.
When contacted Gurinder was understandably over the moon. Speaking exclusively to After Hrs, she said, “This is awesome! I believe my film changed race relations in this country from an ‘us and them’ culture to more of an ‘us and us’ culture. The proof is right here in the Royal Mail collection.”
Gurinder is now working on a musical version of Bend It Like Beckham. “It will hit the West End next year. It has been a brilliant creative experience for me working with West End musical royalty like Charles Heart, who is doing my lyrics and who also wrote Phantom Of The Opera. I am also working with multi-award winning producer Sonia Friedman who is riding high with Book of Mormon right now.”
Women directors still find it hard to break into big-time movie making. She says, “It’s still a male-dominated industry where they control the finances and distribution and so the female sensibility and audience are not always party to their consciousness, until a Bridesmaids comes along and everyone say. ‘Oh, women go to the cinema too and can generate hit movies!”
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