Bend It Like Beckham the role of Jess's mother, Mrs Bhamra, Chadha turned to Shaheen Khan, whom she had previously cast in "Bhaji on the Beach". Anupam Kher, a Bollywood actor, was cast as Mr Bhamra, Jess's father. Chadha worked with The Football Association and ended up casting actual players from a variety of school teams. "Bend It Like Beckham" was released theatrically on 12 April 2002 by Redbus Film Distribution. The film then received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 12 March 2003, by Fox Searchlight Pictures. When originally released in the United Kingdom, it topped the country's box office
A Girl Like Her between 1945-1973, when an unprecedented 1.5 million babies were surrendered under tremendous social pressure. In 2003 she was awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to continue her academic research, interviews, and archival footage research. "A Girl Like Her" ultimately took 10 years to complete. While at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, Fessler also began writing a non-fiction book based on her research and the oral histories she was collecting. By 2005 she had collected 100 stories from women living in every region of the United States. The Girls Who Went Away: the Hidden History of