EXCLUSIVE | Filmmaker Gurinder Chaddha on 'Varanasi' actress Priyanka Chopra: 'It's not easy to work in the Hollywood system but she...'

Filmmaker Gurinder Chaddha has been making films for over two decades now. Her International work has transcended boundaries and borders and two of her most accomplished and acclaimed works are Bride And Prejudice and Bend It Like Beckham. Chadha has now directed her new film called Christmas Karma.

Christmas Karma is basically a British musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Gurinder Chadha. A Bollywood-inspired adaptation of the Charles Dickens 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, the film features an ensemble cast including Kunal Nayyar, Leo Suter, Charithra Chandran, Pixie Lott, Danny Dyer, Boy George, Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Eva Longoria.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the filmmaker spoke about her new film that has opened in the U.K., working with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and the global success Priyanka Chopra has achieved in the West. Chopra sang the Indian version of Last Christmas for her film.

Edited excerpts from the interview

What fascinated you about Christmas Carol? 


So my favourite Christmas movie is It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra. It’s like a Hindi film, honestly. It’s a beautiful film and every year it comes on, every year we watch it, we cry like babies in the film. It’s so moving and it’s a very heartfelt film about what human life means and the value of human life. And a few years back, after I’d watched it for the, 19th, 20th time, I said to myself, I want to make a film that makes me feel like that at Christmas.

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And Christmas is a big deal for us in England because it’s really a family holiday. It’s the time when the whole family comes together and you eat and drink and obviously there’s the spiritual side, but it’s become a big sort of national holiday. So we grew up with Christmas, so Christmas to me is about family time and so I wanted to make a film that I could watch with my kids that that reflected what I felt about the world and the meaning of human existence. 
And that became Christmas Karma.

Your films are very colourful. There are so many vibrant characters and this time the backdrop is Christmas. So can we expect the same template for this film as well?

I’m very happy that PVR theatres is releasing it because it’ll be on the big screen and it’s a musical and there’s a lot of colour in the songs and the settings because it’s beautiful shots of London at Christmas. 
We also have some shots of Africa and animals in Africa. So I think it’s a nice cinematic treat. I forgot to mention one of the things that was exciting for me on this film, even though it’s Charles Dickens, was that I also partnered with Civic Studios, which is an Indian company.
I think you’ll find that all the songs are there, the colours are there. But more than that, it’s actually also saying something quite serious. The film is about what it means to be human. How do we do we live the best life? Not just for us, for people around us. This is a very Indian thing. We already know this, but in the West, somehow it’s got lost. And so this is where the Indian side of me comes out, I think.

How much do you feel Indian cinema has changed or evolved?

I think it’s changed a lot. And it’s been really wonderful to see those changes. And I think seeing, particularly so many women, Indian women, making movies that are being seen, internationally, is amazing. 
And I think we must also thank the OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon. So you have so many great dramas there now. There’s so many international content as well for people to watch. I think it’s just changed the way cinema here is telling its stories compared to back then. But you still have the masala film. And you still need the masala films. We mustn’t forget that.

What are your memories of making Bride and Prejudice and working with Aishwarya Rai?

We just had so much fun. 
We were together for so many weeks in India, in Goa, in Amritsar, in Bombay. We shot here, just here at the port. We created the main street of Amritsar right here by the docks. No one can tell because it looks like Punjab, but we shot it just here. And then we were in LA for some time in Sedona. So we spent a lot of time travelling in all the locations, and it was a lot of fun.

I think Aishwarya was very committed to doing a crossover film. She was working with actors from over there. And I think that was to be applauded. She did very well. Even Priyanka Chopra, I think, is doing an amazing job out there because it’s not easy to work in in the kind of Hollywood system, all the British movie system. There’s very few of us that survive out there just because of everything is more geared towards the white audience. But I think Priyanka  has done a great job of opening that door, certainly for other actors as well.