In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Anushka spoke about her collaboration with Gurinder Chaddha, the idea of making the film, and the movies that inspired her
Filmmaker Gurinder Chaddha has been making films for over two decades now. Her International work has transcended boundaries and borders and two of her most accomplished and acclaimed works are Bride And Prejudice and Bend It Like Beckham. Chadha has now directed her new film called Christmas Karma.
Christmas Karma is basically a British musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Gurinder Chadha. A Bollywood-inspired adaptation of the Charles Dickens 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, the film features an ensemble cast including Kunal Nayyar, Leo Suter, Charithra Chandran, Pixie Lott, Danny Dyer, Boy George, Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Eva Longoria.
And equal contribution to the making of the film has been given by producer Anushka Shah, who is the founder and CEO of Civic Studios. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Anushka spoke about her collaboration with Gurinder Chaddha, the idea of making the film, and the movies that inspired her.
Edited excerpts from the interview
How did this collaboration happen for Christmas Karma, you and Gurinder Chadha? How did it all begin?
The collaboration happened when we were both in Cannes two years ago. I saw
Gurinder Chadha there and I’ve always been a big fan of hers, so I went up to her to talk to her and we started talking a bit about her current project and her work. And I was just telling her that we’re a social impact studio and sort of produce and finance films that have a social message. So then she started telling us about Christmas Karma and one thing led to the other and we got more involved in the project from there. And when it was clear to us that this is such an important topic, such an important message, relevant for both India and the UK, and actually globally, we felt convinced to come on board.
50% of the film’s funding came from Indians across the world. Would you like to elaborate on that part?
One of the reasons she had explained as to why the film struggled to find funding is that often when you are a female director and a South Asian director in the West trying to make a more ambitious film, it’s not always easy to get support and financing for that. Particularly for this film, the main protagonist is played by an Indian, Kunal Nayyar from The Big Bang Theory. The combination of a South Asian director, South Asian lead actor, but for a more Western audience, that made it challenging for her. And of course, it’s generally a difficult time in the industry. But for us, the fact that it’s a woman. We feel like that’s exactly the kind of diversity and representation you need in a more global conversation. So that’s why we came on board to support and finance the film, and then a couple of the other supporters also had very similar reasoning.
What do you have to say about the way cinema has changed and evolved, especially ever since the boom of the OTT has happened?
I think a few things that have happened, I’m sure you’re seeing it, I guess, also on the journalism side, but I think the media industry, the way it used to operate has completely gone through a process of destruction. But with that also comes recreation, you know? Pre-pandemic cinema attendance was much higher. That has definitely struggled post-pandemic, and I think one of the key reasons for that is during the pandemic, we were all literally watching entertainment from home. So the supply of content started to cater to watching things at home. Then the other is also the burst of TikTok and Instagram Reels and short-form but high-quality content on your phones. We didn’t have so much of this pre-pandemic, so as a result, our attention and what we watch has got distributed now with not just cinema, but cinemas, short-form content, streaming content at home.
So I think that’s the one big change. You now have new formats and forms and mediums. I think the second change is we are not necessarily as impressed just with big production and scale. We will go to the cinema to watch that, so there is still a demand for it, but we are also very happy watching lower-scale, lower-production content if it’s high engagement on phones and streaming platforms.
Which were the movies that really inspired you while you were growing up or in recent times that you also wanted to be a part of cinema and contribute to the world of filmmaking?
Internationally, The Nuremberg Trials… a very important movie that explained how to question the different layers of what justice looks like. More locally, I think for me,
Rang De Basanti, like it was for many people, I think, in my generation… a movie that made a big impact because it showed you that as young people you matter in the politics of a country, …that it is not your right to vote and to have democracy, but it’s your duty to participate in democracy.
More recently, I think Homebound was such a fantastic film and definitely the kind of project I think at Civic Studios we would have loved to be a part of.
End of Article
