Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoyis a Pakistani journalist, filmmaker and activist. She has won two Academy Awards for the documentaries Saving Face and A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, that made her the First Pakistani Director to win two Academy Awards and one of only eleven female directors to win the award for a non-fiction film. In 2012, the Government of Pakistan awarded her with the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, the second highest civilian honour of the country. Time named her in its...
NationalityPakistani
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth12 November 1978
CountryPakistan
My topics are timely. When an event is happening is when I want to be there... I think it is our duty to challenge the status quo.
Pakistan destroyed its own reputation. If anything, I have improved Pakistan's image.
Despite their rising international acclaim, Sachal Studios remains virtually unknown in Pakistan. The ensemble is faced with a daunting task: to reclaim and reinvigorate an art that has lost its space in Pakistan's narrowing cultural sphere.
An Academy Award nomination is stuff dreams are made of,
The young boys I speak with say to me: Why would I want to live in this world - where they rely on charity, dry pieces of bread and water, where they are subjected to harsh treatment, when they can be free and be the envy of their colleagues in the afterlife. They are only too eager to sign on the dotted line and join the ranks of the Taliban.
Working in any country where you want to talk about the kind of issues that other people don't want to talk about is difficult.
In December 2011, I will be opening up my production house, Sharmeen Obaid Films, and aspire to change the way Pakistanis approach nonfiction storytelling. There are thousands of stories to be found here.
I'd like to do a film in Canada, but it's too difficult. National Film Board funding takes too long, and there's too much paperwork; by the time the film is approved the topic is dead and gone.
I think perhaps Pakistan can take the lead. Perhaps Turkey can as well, being part of Europe. But someone has to start talking about why the Muslim world has become a boiling pot and look beyond these cartoons to what the ideological reasons are for this divide.
When I'm not working on the ground, spending time with my husband and daughter puts me at ease.
Fighting the Taliban and the various radical organizations on the front lines is like adding a Band-Aid to a cut, it may stop the bleeding but unless you clean it with antiseptic, the germs stay and multiply.
There were a lot of unique challenges in producing the film, such as the logistical issues inherent in producing a long-term verite film in Pakistan, dealing with Urdu and Punjabi dialogue with an English-speaking editor and all the difficulties in recording, editing and clearing so many music tracks.
I hope I can make Pakistan proud by bringing home an Oscar.
Where I grew up in Pakistan, it's really the luck of the draw. My mother got married when she was 17. She never went to college but she wanted each and every one of us to go to college and then work. She was relentless about it. And i think that part of who i am is shaped by her strength. If [girls] families support them, they can achieve their dreams