Director Tan Chui Mui on the filming of “Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales”

Since its creation in 1993, Miu Miu, Prada’s sister brand, has focused on giving women of all ages back control. Driven by one of the fashion industry’s greatest intellectuals, Miuccia Prada (nicknamed Miu Miu) remains true to its pro-women message, expressed through the unmistakable beauty of its clothes. Another core element of this commitment is the Women’s Tales project, which has invited two female directors every year since 2011 to shoot short films that are then presented during the Miu Miu shows for Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter.

While the directors bring different voices and perspectives, the resulting films are united by themes of life, femininity and shared experiences of being a woman.

Miu Miu offers each director full creative freedom and only requires that the main character wear the director’s clothes. During the 13 years of the initiative, 26 women have participated, including Ava Duvernay, So Yong Kim, Chloe Sevigny, Hiam Abbass and Dakota Fanning.

This year, Malaysian director Tan Chui Mui was selected as number 27, with the next director to follow later in the year. The award-winning director made her first film in 2006. Love conquers all, Tan’s film for Women’s Tale is called I am the beauty of your beauty, I am the fear of your fear.

The film revolves around the main character Gita, who leaves her homeland of China and moves to Malaysia. There she meets a tribe of warriors who teach her how to use her anger for good, while a flower seller introduces her to Kali, the goddess of change, destruction and death. In the press release, Miu Miu explains: “By wrestling with what we fear most, we find our inner strength and our beauty.” Told as a coming-of-age story, Tan’s film is uplifting and ultimately empowering.

“Last August, I got a call from Miu Miu Shanghai. I was in China where one of my films was touring, and I felt honored because I know they choose female directors with very distinctive styles,” explains Tan.

Having her name added to the list of the most successful female directors was more than a little humbling. “If you ask who the most important female directors in the world of this century are, these are the names,” she says.

Tan is known for capturing an intimate, personal mood in her work, and although she often takes moments or elements from her life as a starting point, her films are anything but biographical. “I make very personal films that answer my personal questions, but the thing is, in film you usually take a path that you would never choose yourself.”

“It’s more of a fictional biography. It doesn’t make sense for me to make a film about where I am now and about my real life, I have no interest in that, but maybe I like the fictionalized version of myself. It gives me the opportunity to explore other paths, other lives, other fantasies.”

However, one aspect of her life influenced a large part of the film. “I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I go to the gym and have a lot of other women around me, so it’s something I’m familiar with and I imagined an underground fight club.”

Miu Miu’s only condition was that her characters had to wear her pieces, but Tan admits she was skeptical about what the selected collection could offer.

“My instructions were to wait until the new collection came out and then develop the story based on the collection. Since we were shooting in Malaysia, I was worried that the clothes would look out of place. But the collection fits the story very well.”

With a sporty theme running throughout the collection, with lots of layered shorts, tops and jackets, the filmmaker knew it would fit the story she wanted to tell.

“In some other films, the Miu Miu clothes became characters in their own right, they became part of the story. For my story, which is set in a women’s gym, the collection was perfect – it gives depth to each character.”

After spending October 2023 writing the story, Tan scheduled filming for late November. “Apparently, I had the longest shooting schedule compared to the other directors,” she explains. “They usually took five days, and I had scheduled seven days, but I finished in six days.”

“It was the longest schedule because of the action sequence where one minute took a whole night to shoot. One day in between we spent just on set and rehearsing. We had to rehearse the fight sequence with the whole cast and camera.”

The film’s generous planning may be partly due to Tan, who, in addition to her role as director, also attempted to choreograph the action scenes.

“The biggest challenge with this short film was creating the action. It was my first time as an action director,” she admits. “I spent a long time training with the cast before the script was finalized – it was a lot of fun.”

Of course, pushing boundaries and shining a spotlight on talented – but overlooked – female directors is exactly what drives Women’s Tales. Although she is one of relatively few female directors in Malaysia, Tan explains that this often works to her advantage.

“In general, of course, there are fewer female directors, but once you cross the threshold and actually make a film, I think you’re accepted at a lot of film festivals because they want to see films made by women. But for women, the threshold of making films is more difficult to get financing.”

The success of female directors does not only depend on studios and financing, explains Tan. Women also need to express their support for one another.

“We pay a lot of attention to female directors, but we also need a female audience that wants to see a film directed by a woman.”

Updated: July 9, 2024, 04:03