Gurinder Chadha

Her family held "united citizenship" under the British Nationality Act 1948 which granted them full rights of entry and settlement in Britain.

Her father moved first and was joined by the family the following year in Southall, West London, when she was two years of age, where she attended Clifton Primary School.

Chadha's father faced much prejudice because of his appearance as a Sikh Indian, wearing a turban and having a beard.

Her father had worked as a clerical officer in Barclays Bank in Kenya and was unable to secure the same position due to his appearance.

Eventually, the family opened a shop to provide the family with an economic toehold.

Many of her future films would draw on her personal experience of being Indian and English at the same time, and how she dealt with the duality of her identity.

Upon completion of her documentary, I'm British but... Chadha insisted the premiere be held at the Southall Community Center to honor her home community.

For example, she would not wear traditional Indian clothing, and she refused to cook for her family.

In her mind, having all the women in the kitchen cooking while the men sat and ate was oppressive, although it is a living part of Indian culture.

Therefore, she sat at the table with the men and was "extremely outspoken."

Gurinder Chadha, (born 10 January 1960) is a Kenyan-born Indo-British film director of Indian origin.

Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England.

The common theme in her work showcases the trials of Indian women living in the UK and how they must reconcile their converging traditional and modern cultures.

Although many of her films seem like simple quirky comedies about Indian women, they actually address many social and emotional issues, especially ones faced by immigrants caught between two worlds.

Much of her work also consists of adaptations from book to film, but with a different flair.

After beginning her media career in radio in the mid-1980s, Chadha became a BBC television news reporter.

After graduating from the University of East Anglia where she studied politics and developmental economics before radio journalism, Chadha attended the London College of Printing in 1984/85 and studied as a post-graduate.

When she decided she wanted to go to the University of East Anglia to do development studies, her teachers suggested a secretarial course, or a lesser university.

She directed award-winning documentaries for the British Film Institute, BBC and Channel Four, and in 1989 released the documentary I'm British but... for Channel 4, which followed the lives of young British Asians.

In 1990, Chadha established a production company, Umbi Films having no formal film training.

Her first film was the 11-minute Nice Arrangement (1991) about a British Asian wedding.

It was selected for the Cannes Film Festival Critic's section in 1991.

Chadha mentions the influence that the film Purab aur Pachhim had on her work, in an interview with Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life.

"There's a wonderful kind of yearning quality about what is culture and the perils of living in the West and the dangers of what could happen."

Her affinity for stories about families was also attributed to her love for It's a Wonderful Life.

She was empowered by British Bhangra music which combines Punjabi folk rhythms, electronic instrumentation, Bombay film styles, and Western disco; I'm British, but... uses this type of music as a metaphor for syncretic nature of British Asian identity.

Her documentary Acting our Age (1992), set out to understand what it was like being Asian and elderly in Britain.

During production she gave film crew to the elderly participants and allowed them to create their own film in order to challenge perception and layer spectator images.

She is best known for the films Bhaji on the Beach (1993), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Bride and Prejudice (2004), Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), It's a Wonderful Afterlife (2010) and Viceroy's House (2017).

Chadha first received wide recognition for the film in 1993.

It was the first full-length feature film made by a British Asian woman.

The film surrounds a day in the lives of Indian women, across different generations, and how they change in order to converge their cultural background with modern UK living.

Chadha utilizes subtlety and nuances in dialogue and fashion in order to relay the fact that these women come from a very specific culture.

For example, one character wears a leather jacket over her Indian garb, showing how she is fusing her two cultures together.

Prejudice comes from both outside and inside the British-Indian community; white men treat the immigrants as garbage, while the older generation of Indian women judge the modern woman is challenged by the progressive views of the younger women, as they try to break free from the "oppression" that Chadha fought hard to break free from herself.

Her first feature, Bhaji on the Beach (1994), won numerous international awards including a BAFTA Nomination for 'Best British Film of 1994' and the Evening Standard British Film Award for 'Best Newcomer to British Cinema'.

Bhajan, her father (who died in 1999), and her mother were both born in Kenya, and remained there until the political turbulence leading up to independence prompted the family to consider relocating.

Her latest features are the biographical musical comedy-drama Blinded by the Light (2019) and the television show Beecham House.

Gurinder Chadha was born in Nairobi, Kenya, then a British colony.

Her Punjabi Sikh Khatri family was part of the Indian diaspora in East Africa.