‘Christmas Karma questions people like Rishi Sunak,’ says producer

Producer Anushka Shah, whose production house Civic Studios focuses on creating civic entertainment content for Indian audiences, is next attached as the executive producer to Gurinder Chadha's much-anticipated directorial venture Christmas Karma.

She said that being a producer is a big responsibility as each project involves a lot of capital, risk, and also the emotions of everyone working on it.

“A producer’s job is to bring all the right people together and then let them do their magic. There is a lot to manage," she said.

It was Shah’s chanced meeting with Gurinder Chadha at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 that set the ball rolling for their collaboration on Christmas Karma, a contemporary Bollywood musical set in London and inspired by Charles Dickens’ seminal A Christmas Carol.

Talking about the film, she said, “The idea is not necessarily an Indian story, but it is looking at the Indian culture. It is looking at global issues with the lens of the global South.”

She continued, “It is an adaptation of a classic British tale, but it has the Gurinder Chadha masala musical flavour.”

She added that it sheds light on the complexities of immigration and the rise of Indians in the Conservative Party in Britain.

“It questions people like Rishi Sunak. They have come to Britain due to immigration and have now become anti-immigrant in their policies, Shah said. “How do you go from being hateful and resentful to then letting go of that hate? This was something which we both felt strongly about in our initial discussions.”

Kunal Nayyar of The Big Bang Theory has signed on to play the lead role in the film. He will star as Scrooge in pic alongside an expansive cast, including Eva Longoria, Boy George, Billy Porter, Hugh Bonneville, Leo Suter, Charithra Chandran, Pixie Lott, Danny Dyer, Bilal Hasna, Allan Corduner, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Rufus Jones, Eve, and Nitin Ganatra.