GURINDER CHADHA is one of the U.K.’s most proven and respected filmmakers with an illustrious body of work over 30 years. Her award-winning films as a Writer, Director and Producer have earned over $300 million at the international box office. The British Film Institute’s recent filmography study on British Cinema history named Chadha as the U.K’s most prolific female director working today.
She began her career as a broadcast journalist for BBC News and moved into directing with her first documentary I’M BRITISH BUT... for Channel 4 and the BFI in 1989 and subsequently made several award-winning documentaries for BFI, BBC and Channel 4.
Chadha’s first feature, the landmark comedy-drama BHAJI ON THE BEACH, which centred on the experiences of a group of Asian women from three generations on a day trip to Blackpool, received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best British Film and the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Newcomer to British Cinema.
Chadha’s next feature, WHAT’S COOKING?, a comedy-drama that tells the story of four different families (Latino, Vietnamese, African-American and Jewish) preparing for Thanksgiving Dinner, was the Opening Night Film of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and was the first British script to be invited to the Sundance Institute’s Writer’s Lab. The film was voted joint Audience Award winner in the New York Film Critics’ 2000 season (with Billy Elliott).
Her next film, BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, was the highest-grossing British- financed, British-distributed film ever at the UK box office (at time of release) and topped box office charts internationally. The film received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), a BAFTA Award nomination for Best British Film, a European Film Academy nomination for Best Film, and a Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Her other hit films include BRIDE & PREJUDICE – a film that marries Jane Austen with Indian and Western musicals, the first film ever to open at #1 in the UK and India on the same day; ANGUS, THONGS AND PERFECT SNOGGING, based on the international bestseller, released worldwide by Paramount in 2008/2009; IT’S A
WONDERFUL AFTERLIFE, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before releasing internationally in 2010; and VICEROY'S HOUSE, an epic drama on Indian Independence and Partition, starring Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Om Puri and Huma Qureshi. The film made its world premiere at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival to critical acclaim and global box-office success.
In 2015, Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges mounted the stage musical version of BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM in London’s West End to five-star reviews and critics’ awards.
Gurinder’s BLINDED BY THE LIGHT broke sales records at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was released internationally by Warner Bros to great acclaim in 2020..
Chadha’s BAFTA-Nominated TV drama series, BEECHAM HOUSE, launched on ITV in the UK in 2019, and on Masterpiece / PBS in the U.S., June, 2020.
Chadha has received several Honorary Doctorates from British Universities and was awarded an O.B.E. in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her services to the British Film Industry.