In-Conversation with Gurinder Chadha

Writer, director and producer Gurinder Chadha began her career making documentaries for the BBC. She then moved into fictional feature filmmaking with her extraordinary debut Bhaji on the Beach, a groundbreaking movie that showed a group of British women on screen from different faiths and backgrounds in ways that had never been seen on screen before. If that wasn’t different enough, her next film, Bend it Like Beckham (still the highest-grossing film revolving around football and the only film to be released in every country in the world including North Korea), was a smash hit that was way ahead of its time in how it put women’s football at the heart of the story. It also set the template for the charming way Chadha uses humour and goodwill to build cultural bridges in her stories. This goodwill approach would become her trademark, and Chadha has gone from strength to strength with her films Bride and Prejudice, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, Viceroy’s House, and Blinded by the Light. She’s also worked on television with Desi Rascals and Beecham House. She received an OBE for services to the British cinema globally. Chadha will share some secrets and recount from personal experience how to break into the film industry when all the odds seem stacked against you and tell stories from different perspectives containing strong, brilliant and fun women like herself. An inspirational filmmaker for both girls and boys.