Viceroy’s House: An interview with director Gurinder Chadha

Viceroy’s House is the new historical drama set during the Partition of India in 1947 following Viceroy Lord Mountbatten and his wife Lady Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville and Gillian Anderson) who took up residence at the house to oversee the British hand over control of the country after 300 years of colonial rule.

The story centres around the microcosm of life within the house, and a Romeo and Juliet-style romance between Muslim Jeet and Hindu Aaila (Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi), as a representation of the emotional turmoil and displacement caused by the policy of siphoning off a Muslim majority Pakistan from the rest of the country. We sat down with director Gurinder Chadha to speak about interrogating history, taking on the British Empire and still being the only Indian female film director in Britain.

Sarah Bradbury

Viceroy’s House is released nationwide on 3^rd March 2017.