Gurinder Chadha On Legacy, Diaspora, And Reimagining Dickens In 'Christmas Karma'

Gurinder Chadha has spent her entire career telling stories that pulse with diaspora memory, intergenerational tension and an irrepressible sense of joy. From Bhaji on the Beach to the era-defining Bend It Like Beckham, from Bride and Prejudice to Viceroy’s House, her films consistently interrogate where we come from, and who we become in the process. Chadha’s worlds are always multicoloured and multilingual, they carry the ache of displacement, and still insist on celebration.

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With Christmas Karma, her Bollywood-inflected musical reimagining of A Christmas Carol,  she returns to familiar terrain: migration, cultural inheritance, healing and the eternal pull of home. Despite the film’s rocky critical reception in the UK, Chadha remains unfazed; her interest lies in the emotional resonance of a story, not the scorecard around it. True to form, she takes Dickens’ Victorian plea for compassion and expands it into a diasporic meditation on karma, community and second chances.

In our conversation, she opens up about Dickens, childhood nostalgia, Sikh philosophy and why she believes karma was always quietly baked into Dickens’ original text. 

ELLE:Christmas Karma plays with the idea of moral reckoning during the festive season. What sparked this story for you?

Gurinder Chadha (GC):My favourite Christmas film is It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s a beautiful story about the human condition, I made my children watch it even when they complained that it was in black and white! A few years ago, I was watching it again, sobbing as usual, and I thought, “I want to make a Christmas film that makes me feel like this every holiday.” That led me back to Dickens. I live near his house, and funnily enough, my godson is distantly related to him. I walked around the house and asked myself: If Dickens were alive today and he were me, how would he tell this story? Victorian England was a time of huge disparity, and Dickens’ message — humanity over profit — feels just as urgent now. Once I realised my Scrooge was a refugee who came to Britain with nothing, everything fell into place. He believes money will protect him. That’s very real for many of us.

ELLE: You’ve long explored cultural and generational tensions — long before animation and Asian storytellers began mainstreaming “generational trauma” on-screen. How do real-life experiences shape the emotional texture of your films?

GC: I’ve been making “generational dumping films” my entire career — before it even had a name! Bhaji on the Beach was about women from different generations coming together. Bend It Like Beckham is the same. Most people want to make their parents proud. And if you’ve seen your parents or grandparents go through hardship, you carry that. My grandparents were from pre-Partition India, then refugees to India, then Africa. My parents were born in Africa, and later moved to Britain. I carry all of that history.

My films show the struggle, but they also celebrate life beyond it. Healing isn’t the end goal; living is. Dickens understood this too. A Christmas Carol teaches us that to live is to give. That idea connects deeply with Sikhism and seva. Even Dickens didn’t realise how universal his message was.

ELLE: What emotional takeaway did you want audiences to have?

GC: Compassion. Real compassion for people who didn’t get the life they expected — for whatever reason. Also, understanding: why people end up where they are. Having lived in England and hearing so much rhetoric about refugees, often in very compassionate language, I wanted to bring empathy back into the conversation.

ELLE: Your cast is incredible, Eva Longoria, Kunal Nayyar, Billy Porter, Boy George. It’s not a combination one expects in a single film.

GC: I get very Indian about casting — I believe fate takes over! No matter who you think you want, the right person always ends up in the right place.

And this mix may seem disparate, but when you watch the film, they all make perfect sense. Hugh Bonneville, Pixie Lott, Danny Dyer, Leo Suter,  they each brought their own magic. It’s also a reflection of my world: a Mexican-American ghost, an African-American ghost, Boy George, a Delhi boy living in LA… that’s the beauty of the diaspora.

ELLE: What was your favourite part of filming? The story travels to so many places.

GC:Absolutely Kenya — those scenes set in Uganda. My dad was born in those very places and missed Africa every day of his life in England. I carried all of that with me while filming. And then there’s the Christmas Bhangra song — oh my God, a total riot! I had so much fun I put myself in it. The ending came together in an unexpected way: I met George Michael’s estate, and they said, “If you’re making a Christmas film, do a Bollywood version of Last Christmas.” I couldn’t have afforded the song otherwise! They said, “Do the Hindi version — call Priyanka Chopra.” Priyanka said, “I’m not a singer anymore!” I told her, “Just come, we’ll have fun.” My dog is in the film too! Then Anoushka Shankar came onboard. Both Priyanka and Anoushka said, “We’ll do it for you, Gurinder.” That’s how that beautiful finale happened.

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Across three decades, Gurinder Chadha has shaped the language of the South Asian diaspora on screen. Christmas Karma, for all its critique, is a return to her core philosophy: empathy as art, history as inheritance, and joy as rebellion. For Chadha, legacy isn’t about perfection; it’s about connection. As she puts it, echoing both Dickens and Sikh teaching,  we are all connected, and mankind is our business.

​​Christmas Karma releases on 12th December at PVR cinemas across India — tickets are available online.

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