Fowzia Fathima

Fowzia Fathima is a well-known Indian director and cinematographer. Fowzia was born and brought up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. She was born on the 24th of January in the year 1972. Fowzia hails from a family of doctors. Fowzia was a very brilliant student and did very well in her academics. Fowzia's first passion was painting. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Painting, history, and Art from Stella Maris College in Chennai. Fowzia did her MA in art criticism from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. There she secured the first rank.  She even loved studying airplanes and therefore learned bit engineering from the Madras Flying Club, Chennai. Fowzia developed an interest in cinematography and did her Diploma in Cinematography from Film and Television Institute of India. She was also a top rank holder.

Fowzia was one of the few women who went up to learn cinematography, which was rare those times. She began with her career as an assistant and worked under the guidance of P.C Sreeram. Fowzia is known for her contributions to the Malayalam industry as she became the first independent cinematographer with Gulumaal and Mitr, My Friend. She made her independent debut as a cinematographer, and the unique thing was that the technical crew had all-female members.

Fowzia is also known for the emergence of the Indian Women Cinematographer's Collective (IWCC). The basic idea behind its formation is to support the new and uprising female Cinematographers.  At IAWRR in the year 2018, Fowzia was a part of Course Director and Mentored for Documentary film making Workshop. Fowzia's skills are appraised and applauded, and she got honored with many titles.

In 2003, she won the award for the Best Cinematographers for the Tamil film Ivan. In 2006, her name was in the top ten best cinematographers of Chennai. In 2015, she got awarded with Kerala State Television Award for the Best Camera Person. In 2018, Fowzia got recognized as the Jury Member at the Pondicherry International film festival. Her film Nadiyude Moonam Kara got featured in the Women's International Film Festival.