Pakistani American filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has been nominated for an Academy Award for her documentary short film “Saving Face.”
Obaid-Chinoy and collaborator Daniel Junge followed the acclaimed British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad as he travelled to Pakistan and performed reconstructive surgery on survivors of acid violence.
“It was difficult to accept that extreme cases of violence against women not only exist in Pakistan but are culturally validated and accepted,” Obaid-Chinoy told India-West in an e-mail last week.
“Initially, I struggled with coming to terms with the reality on the ground, and to accept that I, as a Pakistani woman, had enjoyed liberties and freedoms that were entirely unavailable to survivors of acid violence.”
According to a comprehensive report released last year by Sital Kalantry, Cornell Law School associate clinical professor of law and faculty director of the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice, acid violence is on the rise in South Asia.
Within India alone, where anyone can purchase acid easily, Kalantry found at least 153 acid attacks between 2002 and 2010. Many attacks are never reported, however, and countries themselves do not keep records; so actual numbers are likely much higher.
Obaid — a journalist before she turned filmmaker — interviewed survivors of acid violence in Pakistan’s Seraiki belt and in Rawalpindi, Karachi and Islamabad.
She also highlighted the work of Dr. Jawad and Marvi Menon, a Pakistani parliamentarian who passed historical legislature raising the sentences awarded to perpetrators of acid violence. No such law currently exists in India.
“During the course of shooting the film, I realized that the survivors were in fact some of the bravest and most courageous women I had ever met, and it was an honor to be able to spend time with them,” she told India-West.
“Faced with unimaginable circumstances, ‘Saving Face’ documents their journeys as they seek treatment and fight for justice.”
“Saving Face” goes up against “The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement,” “God Is the Bigger Elvis,” “Incident in New Baghdad” and “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” in its Oscar category.
The Academy Awards will be presented Feb. 26. “Saving Face” will release in the United States in March, and later in Britain and Pakistan.
For information, visit www.sharmeenobaidfilms.com.