Oscar 2016 Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy accepted her award with a dialogue that highly praised women and all the men who champion women.
“This is what happens when determined women get together. From Saba, the girl in my film who remarkably survived honor killing and shared her story, to Sheila Nevins, Lisa Heller from HBO and Tina Brown who supported me from day one. To the men who champion women, like Geof Bartz who has edited the film to Asad Faruqi, to my friend Ziad who brought this film to the government, to all the brave men out there like my father and husband who push women to go to school and work and who want a more just society for women! Last week, our Pakistani Prime Minister [Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif] has said that he will change the law of honor killing after watching this film. That is the power of film!”
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy dress in a black outfit by Pakistan’s leading contemporary fashion house, Sana Safinaz, for the ceremony, with jewellery exclusively designed for Sharmeen for the occasion by Kiran Aman of Kiran Fine Jewellery.
Enlivened by her valor and the incalculable casualties of honor violations in Pakistan, Obaid-Chinoy propelled an Anti-Honor Killing Campaign, The Price of Forgiveness which has been effective in campaigning the Prime Minister of Pakistan to make a move he has promised to destroy honor killings in Pakistan.
A Girl in the River, which is a joint production of Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (SOC) Films and Home Box Office (HBO), follows the life of an 18-year-old girl who is a survivor of an honour killing attempt.
Each year, honor killing is a pressing issue in Pakistan as more than a 1000 women fall prey to this practice usually at the hands of their own family members. This time, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has made film on the a real-life 19-year-old Pakistani woman named Saba Qaiser whose odyssey began when she fell in love against her family’s wishes and ran off to marry her boyfriend.
The film is a piece of journalism and art, she acknowledges that it first and foremost was conceived as an agent for change. “I was very clear that the film would be used as a vehicle to talk about honor killings in Pakistan,” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy says.
“I can’t wave a magic wand and change things, but I can provide something that can be used as a lobbying tool, as a vehicle to show ‘this is why we shouldn’t have honor killings.’”
Sharmeen has been a vocal campaigner for change, contending that it that it is dependent upon us to make a commotion about bad form. It was never her goal to defame Pakistan, just to improve it. On the off chance that we, as Pakistanis, can't change the awful in our nation, on the off chance that we don't talk up against that which isn't right, we are fizzling in our obligation as great residents. She has made different multi honor winning movies in more than 10 nations around the globe. In spite of prevalent thinking, not every one of her movies is about disputable subjects and a few of her movies praise the positive qualities in Pakistan.