Review of directors short films

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinders style is shown through all her films. She tends to focus on stereotypical Asian characters living in Britain and problems some of them face with British and Asian cultures and backgrounds.

The film 'I'm British but...' is based on real life expereinces rather than a made up story, so her audience are more likely to have a connection with the Asian cast telling their life stories.

Her film 'I'm British but...' introduces the life of four British Asians living in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and what they experience in Britain and classify themselves as. They all face different challenges and live different lifestyles, some are bad and some are good.
For example the Pakistani Scottish women likes to be called British and enjoys were she is from due to she treated well but the Welsh Asian does not enjoy where he lives because of certain incidents like when his field was built in which he believes was a racial motivated attack.

The film is similar to all her mainstream films due to the storylines and issues but it is a real life documentary while all her mainstream films are comedy/drama. It tells me that she likes to have a relationship with her audience whether it is through comedy or drama.

Many of the shots used in 'I'm British but...' showed different parts of Britain like the fields, buildings, crowds etc. These were used with non diegetic sound to tell the audience that although these people telling their lives are British, they are still Asian by blood.

The shots capture the audience through narrative as it shows the UK and talks about the lives of the characters. This helps the audience get into the story as they see what is going on.

They also capture the audience through the characters because it is them that are telling the story not through a voice over giving the audience a much greater understanding as it feels they are talking to them directly.