Film director Gurinder Chadha

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is the inspiration behind Gurinder Chadha's new film Christmas Karma. Scrooge becomes Mr Sood, a miserly businessman in contemporary London, with a loathing of the weak and the homeless. In a series of fantastical scenes he is confronted by the ghosts of past, present and future Christmas. With more than a hint of Bollywood, the film is shot as a vibrant musical. In the Studio follows Gurinder in the making of the film - from shooting on set, through the music making and the edit, to the final presentation of the movie. Along the way, Gurinder explains her ways of working, her serious interest in some of the darker themes of the film, and why it was her children that made her persist in getting the film done.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:08.8	I'm in a screening room in London about to watch a new film.
0:13.5	Christmas Karma is Director Grinda Charder's contemporary musical reworking
0:18.4	of Charles Dickens' famous story of Scrooge, the miser in a Christmas
0:23.8	Carol.
0:26.4	I have money, status.
0:28.7	Nothing can hurt me now.
0:30.9	So then why are you so unhappy?
0:34.4	Come on, you're fleecing me here.
0:36.5	It's busy everywhere, mate.
0:37.8	I am going to walk.
0:40.0	No, tip, not even tonight.
0:41.5	It's Christmas a Eve.
0:42.9	What do they call you then?
0:44.2	Scrooge.
0:45.5	I'm Susan Marling, and this is the documentary
0:48.2	from the BBC World Service.
0:50.6	For in the studio, I've been following Gorinda
0:53.6	in the making of the movie.
0:55.7	So for me, Christmas starts when I watch Frank Capra's film.
0:59.4	It's a wonderful life.
1:01.1	And I was like, where's my film like that?
	...

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