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Pakistan's Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy gets an Oscar!

She won because she made Pakistan look like crap.

No she won because she tried to help people. If you were making a documntary like hers in the USA, you wouldn't go down to the metropolitan areas, you would go down to the ghetto slum areas.
 
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No, she told the reality of what happens in Pakistan.

Be happy, she's the first Pakistani to win an Oscar!

I'm not concerned with what she did. She did a job well done.

I'm just telling the truth. It would not have gotten as much attention if it were not about acid attacks and oppression of women.
 
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Pakistani documentary film "Saving Face" just won the first Oscar for a Pakistani.

Here's a post I wrote earlier on it:

Emmy Award winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s latest film Saving Face has won an Oscar nomination in the category "Best Documentary, Short Subject".

Saving Face is the story of two women from Southern Punjab who are victims of acid attack. “It’s a positive story about Pakistan on two accounts: firstly, it portrays how a Pakistani-British doctor comes to treat them and it also discusses, in great depth, the parliament’s decision to pass a bill on acid violence,” Obaid-Chinoy had said when her film was short-listed for nominations in October 2011, according The Express Tribune. The recently passed Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill requires that the perpetrators of acid violence be punished with life in prison.

Saving Face features a British Pakistani doctor; Dr. Muhammad Ali Jawad, a graduate of Karachi's Dow Medical College. He became famous after he performed revolutionary plastic surgery on Katie Piper, a British model who was burned by acid thrown in her face by her ex boyfriend. Dr. Jawad traveled back to Pakistan to help some of the women victims of acid violence. It's the story of his journey to Pakistan, but it's also a story of two Pakistani women who were victims of acid attacks and how they dealt with the aftermath of the attacks.

Saving Face was released in the US in November, 2011, and the Oscars will be awarded on February 26, 2012.

Born in 1978 in Karachi, Sharmeen is the first Pakistani to win an Emmy award. She won it for her documentary Pakistan: Children of the Taliban in 2010. She graduated from Smith College in the United States with a bachelor of arts in economics and government and then went to complete two master's degrees from Stanford University in International Policy Studies and Mass Communications.

Obaid-Chinoy began her career with New York Times Television in 2002 with the production of Terror's Children, a film about Afghan refugee children, which won her the Overseas Press Club Award, the American Women and Radio and Television Award, and the South Asian Journalist Association Award. Since then, she has produced and reported on more than twelve films around the world. Her films have been shown on Channel 4, CNN, PBS, and Al-Jazeera English.

Sharmeen has a very ambitious social and educational reform agenda for her country. In addition to her career as a filmmaker, Sharmeen is a TED fellow and a social entrepreneur. She is actively working to bring about an "education revolution" in Pakistan's Sindh province. "There needs to be an overhaul," Obaid-Chinoy recently told Fast Company. "Textbooks are outdated and I've been working with the government on how to encourage critical thinking and move away from rote memorization....It's tough, because the mindset is not there. The teachers are essentially products of the same system. We have to break the culture, which takes a long time."

Sindh's teachers are now spending significant time in professional training with education experts to try and reform the teaching of English, math, and social studies. "We're really making this a movement for education for social change," Obaid-Chinoy told Fast Company.

What Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and her fellow social entrepreneurs are doing in Pakistan's unhealthy culture of complaints is truly inspirational. Let's hope others will follow in her footsteps to light candles and not just curse darkness.

Haq's Musings: Pakistani documentary nominated for Oscar Award
 
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I'm not concerned with what she did. She did a job well done.

I'm just telling the truth. It would not have gotten as much attention if it were not about acid attacks and oppression of women.

I disagree with you my friend and historically speaking that is a rarity. I almost always agree with you, but not this time. We Pakistanis are not perfect and we should stop pretending to be. It is time to face the reality. I love pakistan just like you, but we will never improve if we stay in denial about some of our shortcomings. I know you don't support people who throw acid in the face of a poor defenseless woman. Any man who does that is a coward and the society must standby the victim and tell the oppressors they wont get away with oppression and injustice. The true greatness of a brave nation is how well they protect the weak and not how they oppress the weak.
 
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On the right side: Sharmeen Obaid.

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Documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is the first native of Pakistan to be nominated for an Oscar award by the film establishment of Hollywood.

Her documentary entitled “Saving Face” was nominated in the short-subject documentary category. The film details the horrific practice of men in Pakistan attacking women with acid and the efforts of a plastic surgeon named Mohammad Jawad to treat these victims and reconstruct their faces and bodies.

Such attacks are believed to be greatly under-reported in Pakistan.

In an interview with Dawn, the English-language Pakistani newspaper, she explained: “I personally feel that acid attacks are the worst form of violence, I stuck to the idea and was determined to show the world the process a woman goes through after this hideous act. I would also like to thank the women for the resilience, patience and dedication they showed throughout the filming of this documentary.”

Obaid-Chinoy also told BBC she was "speechless" to get the nomination.

"An Academy Award nomination is stuff dreams are made of," she said.

"It has reaffirmed my belief it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, if you put quality work out there, it will be appreciated. I hope I can make Pakistan proud by bringing home an Oscar."

Obaid-Chinoy has already made several documentaries on a wide array of subjects, including the Taliban, violence against women, homosexuality, child abuse and natural disasters.

She is already the first Pakistan to win an Emmy Award from US television for her documentary on the Taliban in Pakistan.
 
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Bollywood movies take some cue from Iranian films. Very rich in content.Children of Heavens is my all time favourite. Looking forward to see The Separation

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Pakistani won because she depicted Pakistanis in negative light.

It's not like that my friend. It's about stating the truth. But unfortunately whether it's India or Pakistan we are too much sensitive about this.
 
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Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won the Oscars

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‘I am Pakistani’

With her Mac on one side and a host of notebooks and papers on the table in front of her, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, journalist and independent film-maker (Reinventing the Taliban and the upcoming The Promise — A journey through Afghanistan) invites me to sit on her ‘see-saw’ sofa in the house she grew up in. She is energetic, loud, open and most importantly, she’s on a mission. Teaming up with a group of individuals, she’s formed the Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) and they’re on a mission to do exactly that — archive the history of Pakistan in whatever way or form possible. And communicate it as well.

Some of the paintings on display include six life-sized murals based on every decade in Pakistan’s history; the photography is predominantly a contemporary look by prominent photographer on Pakistan itself. The documentaries includes those based on the last days of Lord Mountbatten as the viceroy of pre-Partition India, how different film-makers view Partition and also a documentary examining the social and political issues predominant such as poverty and inflation as well as the remnants of the British rule over South Asia: the bureaucracy.

Sheema Kirmani along with Tehreek-i-Niswan presented a play yesterday based on Lahore in 1947 on an immigrant family coming to stay at an allotted haveli, seemingly vacated, after Partition only to discover that the matriarch of the previous household continued to inhabit it. The dialogues had been taken from the poet, Nasir Kazmi’s original letters and writings and the story line itself was based on an actual incident that had taken place.

Talking about how the CAP formed, Sharmeen says, “Last year in the summers, I was having a discussion about Pakistan: its history, where we are and where we are headed. I realised that there was no place where you could absorb Pakistan’s history,” adding that there was a lack of national identity that the common Pakistani has, she mentioned that “we are lost as people.” Hence the idea of creating a platform through which one could know Pakistan, where it came from, who were the people who chose to support its formation along with the stages through which the country has progressed, both culturally and historically, took birth.

Realising that the project itself was too big for her to handle on her own, she brought together, in her own words, “a group of mad, creative but ambitious individuals.” These individuals happen to be Sarah Taher Khan (CEO Radio1 FM91), Omar Rahim, Amean Jan Muahmmad (photographer), Durriya Kazi (HoD Visual Arts, Karachi University), Minal Rahimtoola, Sabeen Mahmud (COO b.i.t.s.) and Altaf Qureshi (lawyer).

“We don’t give the general public any form of entertainment that requires them to use their brain cells,” says Sharmeen, talking about the content of the festival itself. “The partition of 1947 was a traumatic experience and remembering it gives a sense of how Pakistan came into existence. And who were the people who made it happen.” According to Sharmeen a lot of the photographs and material used in the festival had been donated to them by ‘like-minded indivduals’, also including some of the documentaries. “Looking at them you realise: we were civilised as a nation,” she says, observing thus after going through some of the photographs, “and now in some cases, it’s become so bad, it’s unrecognisable”. Talking about the murals exhibited in the festival, based on Pakistan’s history she say “that tidbit of history will be more alive than by just reading it in textbooks.”

An interesting aspect of the festival is that it is completely free of cost. From the exhibitions, plays, documentaries to the open discussions, street-theatre and musical performances, this is an event that costs the attendee nothing. At the minimum it requires that one simply to attend or as in the case of “closed events” pick their passes up early since they will be given out at a first-come, first-serve basis. It doesn’t end here, to ensure that people do not have a reason not to come, CAP has taken care of transporting interested individuals to the venue as well: “There will be free buses available on the 10th and the 14th — the two holidays — from 11am to 8pm, every two hours, back and forth from Nipa Chowrangi, Society Office near the Quaid’s Mausoleum and the Korangi Chowk,” says Sharmeen. “We don’t want to give people an excuse for not coming,” she adds.

Every person working for the festival has done so willingly and without expecting any monetary benefits in return. Perhaps a first in the history of the Karachi Arts Council, but they have provided the venue free-of-cost as well. Even the logo which had been designed by Khizra Munir from Interflow to the vocal booths provided by Radio1 FM91 has been done pro bono.

Speaking of the future of CAP and what it hopes to achieve, Sharmeen says: “A lot of this work will be electronically available on our websites. My hope is that next year we’ll be doing something different along those same lines. We’re hoping that old buildings in Karachi that we can either have donated to us or given to a trust so that we can build a museum. I imagine in 10 years’ time that this will be the place where people will give lectures and talks,” she adds about what they have currently collected so far that “everything that is being received is going to the museum. Till then we’ll look for a temporary place to house them.”

At the end of it all, more important than whatever goes on in the Shanakht Festival itself is what people will take home with them — a sense of renewed identity and a stronger sense of belonging and connection to the country they belong to as well as a desire to help bring it forward into the future. There aren’t many individuals willing to take time out and work for the enlightenment and betterment of the society itself, let alone doing it without expecting any materialistic benefit — CAP happen to be some of those ‘creative, mad but ambitious individuals’ who are doing precisely that. And it is important because: “We need to celebrate 60 years of Pakistan. I have walked across the border to Afghanistan and Iran and I have seen the other side,” says Sharmeen, adding that “while we have what we have, we need to learn to appreciate it and move forward.”
 
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KARACHI: Two non-profit organisations on both sides of the border have started an exchange for 2,400 schoolchildren in an effort to target the next generation.
The Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) and Routes2Roots launched “Exchange for Change” at the Marriott Hotel on Monday with Sherry Rehman as a guest speaker.

“Aloo paratha must be shared,” remarked Rehman, while commenting on how important it was to share cultural similarities that must not be forgotten. “We have a cycle of hope to create and a cycle of fear to break. We share much more than we don’t.”
The project will take place in four stages over a year. It will consist of a sustained exchange of written, visual and oral histories between schoolchildren, from the ages 10 to 14, from 10 schools across Pakistan and India. In the first stage, the children will send handwritten letters to each other about topics of common interest and opinions about history.
This will be followed by an exchange of postcards on their neighbourhoods. The students will also take and share photographs of historical monuments in Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi and Lahore and in the final stage there will be a collection of oral histories from their parents and grandparents.
CAP President Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy explained that that they hoped to “achieve cross-border affinity through dialogue”. Project directors Alia Hashmi and Anum Zakaria told The Express Tribune about how the children, teachers and organisers were optimistic about the project. “This is the first time an initiative like this has been taken and we’re all very excited,” they said.
Amean J, a photographer and board member of CAP, told The Express Tribune how the visual nature of this project will help the younger generations take notice of everyday things that otherwise occupy the periphery of their minds. “Children who carry cameras will now be photographing things they take for granted, like the food they eat or regular household things that are part of their culture to share with their new friends across the border,” he said.
Sarah Elahi of CAP’s Outreach Programme explained how there are too many misconceptions regarding Hindus and India in Pakistan, and vice-versa. “Most people here don’t even know that a Hindu, Prof Jagan Nath Azad, wrote Pakistan’s first national anthem on a request from Mr Jinnah,” she said. “It was later replaced by the one we use today.” She told The Express Tribune how children at the outreach schools reacted with “Tobah, tobah” [God forgive me] when asked to do some simple role-playing as Hindu children before Partition. Exchange for Change is working towards eradicating such pre-conceived notions about the ‘enemy nation’ in both countries.

Back to school
Schools from Pakistan
The City School
Links School
Ilm School
SMB Fatimah Jinnah
Saving Group Schools
Schools from India
Sanskriti School
St Paul’s School
Balwant Rai Mehta Vidya Bhawan Senior Secondary School
Mehta Vidya Bhavan School
Shushuvan School
Mahatma Gandhi Memorial High School
Published in The Express Tribune December 14th, 2010.

Thank you Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy something done for Pakistan, very proud of you! It is first positive light news of Pakistan since many negatives.
 
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Bollywood movies take some cue from Iranian films. Very rich in content.Children of Heavens is my all time favourite. Looking forward to see The Separation

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It's not like that my friend. It's about stating the truth. But unfortunately whether it's India or Pakistan we are too much sensitive about this.



It is about time we South Asians come out of Denial. We do a lot of things that are commendable. However, we are not perfect and when we have shortcomings we should talk about those openly and admit when are wrong. Admitting our mistakes does not make us LOSE FACE, but it says that we are human and have our frailities and our weaknesses. Admitting our faults is the first step in recovery and improvement.

I am proud of sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for producing and Epic documentary on a controversial subject that we South Asians have been sweeping under the rug. Whether it is a woman who gets acid thrown in her face or worst murdered under the pretext of HONOR KILLING or a poor bride who is set on fire because her parents do not agree to send enough Dowry, it is injustice and oppression of a weaker person by the oppressors. We must admit this happens and support the victim and not sweep things under the rug because we don't want to deal with this injustice.
 
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It is about time we South Asians come out of Denial. We do a lot of things that are commendable. However, we are not perfect and when we have shortcomings we should talk about those openly and admit when are wrong. Admitting our mistakes does not make us LOSE FACE, but it says that we are human and have our frailities and our weaknesses. Admitting our faults is the first step in recovery and improvement.

sir Pakistan is in central asia....west classifies us in greater middle east....so i will have to differ with you.
 
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West is so cheap. Next Oscar will go to Iran bashing of homosexuals. Everybody knows the formula.
 
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