Fatma Begum
Born	Fatma Bai 1892 Gujarat, Surat district, British Raj, British India
Died	1983 (aged 90–91) Gujarat, India
Other names	First Female Film Director of Indian Cinema
Occupations	Actress director screenwriter producer
Years active	1922–1940
Spouse	Nawab Sidi Ibrahim Muhammad Yakut Khan III (divorced)[1]
Children	3, including Zubeida and Sultana
Relatives	Jamila Razzaq (granddaughter) Rhea Pillai (great-granddaughter)

Fatma Begum (1892 – 1983) was an Indian actress, director, producer and screenwriter. She is known as The First Female Film Director in Indian Cinema.^[2][3][4]

Within four years, she went on to write, produce and direct many films. She launched her own production house, Fatma Films, which later became Victoria-Fatma Films, and directed her first film, Bulbul-e-Paristan, in 1926.^[5][6]

Fatma Begum was born into an Urdu-speaking Muslim family in India and came from a background in the Urdu language theater, her family of Muslim background having spoken that tongue. She was trained in theater and mostly acted in Urdu and Hindi plays.^[2][7]

She began her career on the Urdu stage. She later shifted to films and debuted in Ardeshir Irani's silent film, Veer Abhimanyu (1922).^[2][4] It was common practice for men to play women in plays and movies, so she became a huge woman superstar. Fatma Begum was fair skinned and wore dark make-up that suited the sepia/black & white images on the screen. Most of the roles required wigs for the heroes as well as the heroines.

In 1926, she established Fatma Films which later became known as Victoria-Fatima Films in 1928. She became a pioneer for fantasy cinema where she used trick photography to have early special effects. She was an actress at Kohinoor Studios and Imperial Studios, while writing, directing, producing, and acting in her own films at Fatma Films.^[2][5]

Begum became the first female director of Indian cinema with her 1926 film, Bulbul-e-Paristan.^[2][8] The film was a high budget production has been described as a fantasy film featuring many special effects and her daughters Sultana, Zubeida also Shehzadi worked in the film.^[1] The film places Begum among early pioneers of fantasy cinema such as George Melies.^[1] She directed many other films, her last being the Goddess of Luck in 1929. While continuing to produce and appear in her own work, Fatma worked for Kohinoor Studios and Imperial Studios in the film Duniya Kya Hai? in 1937.^[2]

She worked in her last film Diamond Queen as Faima in 1940.

She was married to Nawab Sidi Ibrahim Muhammad Yakut Khan III of Sachin State.^[7] When she joined theatre and stage dramas then he didn't approved her career in acting at that time when it was not considered an appropriate profession for girls from respectable families so she divorced him and took her daughters custoday.^[1] She was the mother of silent superstars Zubeida, Sultana and Shahzadi.^[4][6] She was also the grandmother of Humayun Dhanrajgir and Durreshahwar Dhanrajgir, son and daughter of Zubeida and Maharaja Narsingir Dhanrajgir of Hyderabad and Jamila Razzaq daughter of Sultana and Seth Razaaq, a prominent businessman of Karachi. She also happened to be the great-grandmother of model turned actress Rhea Pillai who is the daughter of her grand daughter Durreshahwar Dhanrajgir.^[9]

She died in 1983 at the age of 91.^[2][10]

Her legacy was carried on by her daughters Sultana, Shahzadi and Zubeida acted in India's first ever talkie, Alam Ara, in addition to being a silent film star.^[2][4]

• Media related to Fatma Begum at Wikimedia Commons
• Fatma Begum at IMDb