GURINDER CHANDHA began her career as a BBC news reporter. She went on to direct award-winning documentaries for the British Film Institute, BBC and Channel 4. Her first feature Bhaji On The Beach won numerous International awards including jury prizes at Locarno and several audience's favorite film awards. It received a BAFTA Nomination for "Best British Film of 1994" and Gurinder won the Evening Standard British Film Award for "Best Newcomer to British Cinema". In 1995 she directed Rich Deceiver, a two-part drama for the BBC watched by 11 million viewers.
What's Cooking?, the Opening Night film of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, was the first British script to be invited to the Sundance Institute's Writer's Lab. The award-winning film - starring Alfre Woodard, Mercedes Ruehl, Julianna Margulies, Kyra Sedgwick and Joan Chen - was voted joint audience award winner in the New York Film Critics" 2000 season (tied with Billy Elliot). Gurinder won the award for Best British Director in the London Film Critics' Circle 2001 Awards.
Bend It Like Beckham was released in the UK on 280 prints on April 12, 2002, and earned over 11 million pounds at the UK box-office, the most ever for a British financed, British distributed film. The film topped the box-office charts in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, won audience favorite film awards at the Locarno, Sydney and Toronto film festivals, and received an European Film Academy Nomination for Best Film in the 2002 European Film Awards.
Gurinder's next film is a contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen's classic Pride An Prejudice into a Bollywood musical.
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