Express News Service
Female filmmakers with an inclination for crowd-pleasing entertainers are rare in Malayalam cinema. Seasoned costume designer Stephy Zaviour, who recently made her directorial debut with Madhura Manohara Moham (MMM), is one.She describes herself as a quintessential ’90s kid who grew up with a deep fondness for cinema — a “cinema Wikipedia” who knew every actor’s name, aside from becoming enamoured of their costumes.“That’s how I got the idea of becoming a costume designer, which eventually led me to fashion designing and a career in films after finishing my degree,” Stephy smiles.
Excerpts:
How did you come to direct Madhura Manohara Moham?
The thought of directing a film popped up after working as a costume designer for seven or eight films. But there was the concern of someone judging me because being a costume designer, you’re not always present on set, and the technical know-how is hard to come by, unlike in the case of an editor or cinematographer. The others are expected to remain only on the creative side.So I took a year to tell a friend about this. When writers Mahesh Gopal and Jai Vishnu approached me with a script, I liked it. Long story short, I thought Rajisha would be apt to play the character Meera. Three days later, I committed to it. Rajisha liked the story, and she was completely on board with what we were doing. She didn’t even demand to ask to see the film before release, except for her portions when dubbing. She saw the whole film for the first time in the theatre.
So you aren’t one of those people who believe in the idea of learning thoroughly about all the departments before embarking on directing?
I would say I was prepared to direct MMM. There is generally the assumption that just because I’m in the industry and know some technicians, I can easily get into direction — no, that’s not how it was. Following the greenlighting of MMM, I took around one year to…
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