Culture - 3/12/24
Gita is in training. But, for what? She left China. Tragedy befell someone she knew, and now she’s in Malaysia, surrounded by a sisterhood who are teaching her how to fight. “I wanted a break,” Gita confesses, “I wanted a pause.” Gita seems haunted by her past. Her powerful pain culminates in an unrestrainable fight, where no man — no matter how strong or skilled — can defeat her screaming rage.
I AM THE BEAUTY OF YOUR BEAUTY, I AM THE FEAR OF YOUR FEAR, directed by Chui Mui Tan, is the 27th commission from Miu Miu Women’s Tales. The acclaimed short-film series invites today’s most profound and original female directors to investigate vanity and femininity in the 21st century.
Chui Mui Tan (b.1978) is a Malaysian director and film-producer. Born in Sungai Ular, a small fishing village in Kuantan, Malaysia, Chui Mui made her debut feature in 2006, with Love Conquers All, which won numerous prizes at film festivals across the world. Her 2021 feature, Barbarian Invasion, a
meditation on motherhood and identity, was nominated for Best Picture at the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival Global Earl Awards. And in 2022, Chui Mui’s project, Just Because You Pressed the Shutter? won the 2022 Jimei x Arles Discovery Award.
“A girl from China who comes to Malaysia to search for herself” is how Chui Mui Tan describes her new film for Miu Miu, “but the search can only be inwards.” At one point, we see Gita spend time with an Indian flower seller, where she’s taught about the ancient myth of Kali, goddess of time, destruction,
death and change. “Through wrestling with what we fear the most,” Chui Mui Tan explains, “we find our inner strength, and we find our own beauty.”
In I Am the Beauty of Your Beauty, I Am the Fear of Your Fear, Chui Mui explores the many meanings of “self-defense,” for a woman in the modern world plagued by eternal struggles. Through friendship and support, Gita builds up her physical — and spiritual — power. Can she release her emotional
burdens? And, in its place, will she discover an unknown strength that may well be thousands of years old?
Chui Mui Tan’s new episode for Women’s Tales will be premiered at Yongfu C52 in Shanghai on March 12th, 2024. The short is available afterwards on Miu Miu digital channels and on MUBI globally.
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