‘Bend It Like Beckham’ Director Gurinder Chadha Forging Christmas Movie About Indian Scrooge Set In London; True Brit Financing
23.01.2024 - 11:17
/ deadline.com
Gurinder Chadha is forging an indie Christmas movie about an Indian Ebenezer Scrooge set in London, financed by Zygi Kamasa’s new UK distributor True Brit.
The Bend It Like Beckham director has revealed the news in the past hour as she delivers evidence at the British Film and High-End Television inquiry, which starts today.
Chadha said the film is “fun, British and very close to Dickens’ original themes,” telling the story of an Indian Scrooge who votes for the Conservative Party and hates refugees.
She says financing is being provided through a combination of UK tax credits and Kamasa’s True Brit, which Deadline revealed launched late last year with backing from Three Six Zero. Its debut production is Danny Dyer-starrer Marching Powder.
While Chadha said her Xmas movie is “coming together” due to the combination of tax credits and True Brit, she added that “it has been a real struggle for me to get it off the ground partly because the lead character is Indian,” adding: “By making it Indian Scrooge it changes everything in terms of how I get it financed.”
Questioned by committee member John Nicolson on whether this struggle for financing is “naked racism,” Chadha said “there is a perception that people don’t want to see a film that culturally doesn’t reflect them.”
“At the end of the day it will be much easier to have a white cast than a cast of color to make films,” she added.
“Talk to any POC filmmaker and they will tell you that. If you have Idris Elba or John Boyega then you can do it and they have worked very hard to get where they are but if I was to cast a new kid out of film school [from an ethnic minority background] and try to make them lead it will be hard. That has been my experience on the film I’m