I'm British But...

An exploration of the complex issue of identity for second generation British Asians, I'm British But... (1989) was the first film by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), subsequently the most successful of the new wave of Asian-British filmmakers in the 1990s.

Chadha's documentary uses the rise of Bhangra music - a vibrant fusion of traditional Punjabi dance music with contemporary Western dance styles from Hip Hop to House - to investigate the extent to which Asian forms have both absorbed and influenced Western culture and the way this reflects a more confident generation of Asian-British young people who reject stereotypes of passivity. The interviewees - a deliberately diverse group drawn from Glasgow, Belfast, London and South Wales (all but one of whom was born in the UK) - are largely relaxed about their identities. They are clear that this is their home, but equally certain of their wish to retain a link to their Asian origins, even if their parents' homelands feel remote and unfamiliar.