Pak filmmaker wins first ever Oscar

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Pak filmmaker wins first ever Oscar

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Pakistani documentary Saving Face produced by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy has won the Oscar Award.

27 February,2012 09:31 pm

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won first Oscar on Sunday for Saving Face, a short documentary about acid attacks on women and those who help them recover.The film by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy follows survivors among hundreds of people attacked every year, and focuses on British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad, who returned to his homeland to help restore their faces and lives.Daniel and I want to dedicate this award to all the heroes working on the ground in Pakistan including Dr. Mohammad Jawad whos here with us today, said Obaid-Chinoy, referring to her co-director Daniel Junge.Jawad was the plastic surgeon working on rehabilitating all these women including Rukhsana and Zakia, our main subjects of the film, whose resilience and bravery in the face of such adversity is admirable, she added.Obaid-Chinoy paid tribute to all the women in Pakistan who are working for change, saying: Dont give up on your dreams. This is for you.Twitter followers in Pakistan erupted with joy at news of the Oscar, falling over themselves with praise for her win and delighted that Pakistan was making headlines for something other than Al-Qaeda, Taliban and bomb attacks.Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was quick to congratulate Obaid-Chinoy, and said she would receive a high civil award without specifying which one.Her mother Saba spoke of the familys delight and called on parents to support their daughters in a country where women can be treated as second-class citizens.She is very happy. I am proud of my daughter. She has brought happiness for the family and the entire country. It is a great honour, she said.We all supported Sharmeen in her endeavours and she has made Pakistan proud... I have a message for all fellow Pakistanis to support their daughters because our daughters have immense talent to the country.In a message read out by her mother, Obaid-Chinoy said she hoped to screen Saving Face at schools, colleges and in communities across the country to spread awareness and promote dialogue in Pakistan.Her 12-year-old brother, Hamza, said he had been up all night watching the Oscars ceremony with the rest of her relatives in Karachi, telling reporters simply that he was extremely thrilled.Obaid-Chinoy was born in 1978 and raised in the southern port city. She received a bachelors degree from Smith College and went on to complete two masters degrees from Stanford University.Fellow Pakistani documentary filmmaker and multi-media expert, Musadiq Sanwal, said the prize was recognition of the fact that Pakistan was gaining a voice of its own in international culture.Sharmeens documentary and its winning an Oscar shows Pakistan is creating its own narrative and gaining its own voice internationally, Sanwal said.Earlier, Pakistan had no voice at all to describe its strength and weaknesses, but now such efforts give it emancipation and power.Marvi Memon, a former Pakistani lawmaker, who campaigned for tougher penalties for the perpetrators of acid attacks and played a role in the documentary, congratulated the Pakistani director.