Gurinder Chadha is currently working on an independent Christmas film featuring an Indian Ebenezer Scrooge based in London, financed by Zygi Kamasa’s recently established UK distribution company, True Brit, according to a Deadline report.
The director of ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ shared this announcement today during her testimony at the British Film and High-End Television inquiry.
Chadha described the film as “fun, British and very close to Dickens’ original themes”. The story revolves around an Indian Scrooge who supports the Conservative Party and harbors animosity towards refugees.
The funding for the movie has been provided through a combination of UK tax credits and Kamasa’s True Brit, said Chadha. True Brit, as previously reported by Deadline, was launched last year with backing from Three Six Zero. Danny Dyer-starrer ‘Marching Powder’ is the first production under True Brit.
Although the movie is finally “coming together”, Chadha said “it has been a real struggle for me to get it off the ground partly because the lead character is Indian,” adding “By making it Indian Scrooge it changes everything in terms of how I get it financed.”
During the event, one of the committee members John Nicolson questioned her on whether this struggle for financing is “naked racism”, Chadha replied, “there is a perception that people don’t want to see a film that culturally doesn’t reflect them.”
“At the end of the day it will be much easier to have a white cast than a cast of color to make films,” she added.
She shared her experience of making this Christmas movie, and said, “Talk to any POC filmmaker and they will tell you that. If you have Idris Elba or John Boyega then you can do it and they have worked very hard to get where they are but if I was to cast a new kid out of film school [from an ethnic minority background] and try to make them lead it will be hard.”
She further said, “It’s sad for me now because I get rejections from [financiers and distributors] who should know better.”
The filmmaker has been struggling to make the untitled movie for three years, as she added that she was told at the beginning that Apple TV+ knocked together a similar picture featuring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, that was released in 2022 titled ‘Spirited’.
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