Director's Bio:

Anglo-Asian director Gurinder Chadha was born in Kenya, her parents lived there until the political dissension leading to Kenya's independence drove them to move back to her grandfather's native India. As citizens of India, which was still considered part of the British Empire at that time, they settled in Southall, West London in 1951.
Chadha began her career as a news reporter with BBC Radio, directed several award winning documentaries for the BBC, and began a fruitful alliance with the BFI and Channel Four who produced the 30-minute documentary, I'm English But... (1989). The film followed young English Asians who, unlike their parents, listen to Acid Bhangra, a mix of Punjabi bhangra and rap. In 1990, Chadha set up her own production company; Umbi Films. Her first dramatic film short was the 11-minute Nice Arrangement (1991) about a British-Asian wedding.

Chadha's feature directorial debut, Bhaji on the Beach (1993) was an Asian feminist comedy with a cheeky wit and a more serious political and cultural theme. It traced the adventures of three generations of Anglo Asian women on holiday in the vacation spot Blackpool. After Bhaji, Chadha directed a two-part drama Rich Deceiver (1995), for the BBC, and continued to work on documentaries. She followed up her previous cult hit with What's Cooking (2000), the story of four Los Angeles families on Thanksgiving weekend. Bend It Like Beckham (2002), is Chadha's most commercial film to date, a comedy about an Asian girl who takes a fancy to football while trying to balance it with her parent's demands. Beckham became a smash hit and one of the highest grossing home-produced films of 2002.

Film Synopsis:

From director Gurinder Chadha and the team that created "Bend It Like Beckham" comes a classic romance not just retold, but reinvented in a new globally connected world. BRIDE AND PREJUDICE puts an entirely different spin on Jane Austen's story of spirited courtship - Bollywood-style. Music, dance and spectacle merge with love, vanity and social pressures, as Chadha transports the comic tale of a witty young woman trying to find a suitable husband to a cross-cultural setting that spans 21st century India, London and America. It all begins in a modest Indian village when the determined Mrs. Bakshi sets out to find marriage matches for her four beautiful daughters while there's a lavish wedding party in town. Right away, the smart and headstrong Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) announces she will only marry for love, giving her mother nightmares. Then Lalita meets the wealthy American Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) and sparks immediately fly. But is it love or hate? Darcy comes off to Lalita as an arrogant California snob. Lalita looks to Darcy like a small-town Indian beauty who knows nothing of the world.

Alternately enchanted by and suspicious of one another, Lalita and Darcy nearly fall prey to assumptions, gossip and a comedy of errors . . . until pride is humbled and prejudice overcome so that love can triumph. Gurinder Chadha directs BRIDE AND PREJUDICE from a script by Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges, which brings to the plot of Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" elements of high-style Bollywood romance, Hollywood song and- dance and the modern realities of international romance. The film features a cast and crew that includes both Bollywood and Hollywood talent including Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai as Lalita; rising star Martin Henderson (THE RING) as Darcy.

  
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