Los Angeles, Jan 23 – Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha has revealed that she’s making a film based on Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, but one with a contemporary twist.
Speaking about the current state of the UK’s film industry, she said the upcoming film would have an Indian lead character, reports ‘Variety’.
“My Scrooge is an Indian Tory who hates refugees”, she said.
Gurinder, best known for ‘Bend it Like Beckham’, also told the U.K. Parliament that the film had support from True Brit Entertainment, the new distribution company set up by former Lionsgate U.K. and Europe head and Marv Studios CEO Zygi Kamasa.
“It’s very close to Dickens’ original themes with the cost of living crisis in Britain”, she said, admitting that she’d spoken to the U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about the film and he’d asked her not “make him look bad” to which she responded, “I don’t have to do that for you.”
As per ‘Variety’, she said the film had proved a struggle to finance, with Gurinder, despite being a hugely respected beloved director, being told that “it was not commercial and was small — it changes everything in terms of how you get it financed.”
“Right now I’m putting together an independent Christmas film set in London, very diverse and it’s been a real struggle for me to get that film off the ground,” Chadha said.
“Partly because the lead character is Indian. And I’ve always had that with the films I’ve made.”
aa/dan
