Today on 8th March International Women’s Day, we announce the formation of Indian Women Cinematographers’ Collective, IWCC. It is a Collective, comprising of Indian women cinematographers, which will showcase, encourage, celebrate and support our work and vision.
It started as an initiative by senior cinematographer Fowzia Fathima to create a network of women cinematographers, the collective has evolved into a group of 60 members and continues to add new members everyday. Her initiative has set off an exciting time for women cinematographers in India. As we grow in numbers and in strength we intend to trigger changes in the industry. Our website www.iwcc.in (under construction currently) will feature an extensive database of women cinematographers and showcase their diverse body of work. It’s members will brainstorm over technical and creative challenges via blogs, podcasts and discussion forums on the website.
The Collective will celebrate the work of its members through social media, online press and printed publications to shine a light on the excellence of women cinematographers in the field and encourage more girls to consider cinematography and its allied fields such as gaffing, grips and assistant cinematographers as viable professions.
We invite women cinematographers and young women from film and media schools to connect with us at www.iwcc.in and be a part of this Collective.
In the spirit of International Women’s Day, IWCC honors and celebrates Ms. B. R. Vijayalakshmi – the first Indian woman cinematographer, also the first Asian woman cinematographer. She made a niche for herself back in the ’80s, when a woman cinematographer was unheard of and carved a path for future generations of female cinematographers to come.
“Each of us until we connected to the other women cinematographers experienced an isolation. Each of us is looked at as an exception. We need to change this perception. The time has come for the idea of the Collective to manifest itself now.” Fowzia Fathima, SICA
“In a global context, female cinematographers are banding together to have a collective voice and a platform to showcase their work like the ICFC (America), illuminatrix (UK) & CinematographersXX. There can’t be a better time than this to announce the inception of IWCC which stands to celebrate Indian women cinematographer’s work and spirit.” Savita Singh, WICA.
“The one thing we’ve known for certain is men and women look at things with different eyes… through a different lens. In the world of film, women have been well represented in front of the camera. I am excited to see how the film industry will be impacted as more women explore storytelling from behind the camera… it’s almost as if there is a whole new world to be discovered.” Priya Seth, WICA
“This is our space to nurture and enable the one thing that can cause change and break discriminatory barriers, and that is Excellence.” Deepti Gupta, WICA
“This will be a move towards a cinematic journey with more women cinematographers telling stories, where talent is the only requisite and there are no other limits. If we can inspire one woman to choose the craft of cinematography as a profession, we have made a difference”. Preetha Jayaraman, SICA