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 not her mother, Fessler, an adoptee, was deeply moved by the woman’s story. She subsequently produced several autobiographical installations on adoption; two featured her previous short films "Cliff & Hazel" about her adoptive family, and "Along the Pale Blue River" (2001/2013) about her search for a yearbook picture of her mother. At each installation site, Fessler invited audience members to write and post their own adoption stories and based on the anonymous stories left behind by first mothers, she initiated an oral history project to collect the women’s stories. In 2002, Fessler began interviewing women who lost children to adoption