Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy made history by winning Pakistan’s first Oscar four years ago. Now she is back in Hollywood, hoping to scoop a second Academy Award for her harrowing film about a teenage girl shot in the face by her own family.
However, while other Oscar nominees obsess about hair and make-up, the 37-year-old filmmaker has a much bigger fight on her hands: how to stop honor killings in Pakistan, where she said more than 1,000 women are murdered each year by male relatives for allegedly bringing shame on the family.
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness tells the story of 19-year-old Saba, who was beaten, shot and thrown into a river after she ran off to marry her fiance, whom her family initially accepted — and then decided was too poor.
Photo: AFP
The 40-minute film goes head-to-head with four other nominees in the documentary short subject category at today’s Oscars in Hollywood.
Survivors of honor killings are rare and the film offers a stark look at the pain — physical and emotional — inflicted on Saba, her extraordinary resilience and ultimate failure to see her father and uncle convicted.
They beat her, shot her in the face and dumped her in a burlap sack in a river.
At the last moment, she tilted her head, meaning the bullet grazed her cheek instead of shattering her skull. Somehow, she managed to cling to the bushes and pull herself out of the water. She went to the police and to the hospital.
Obaid-Chinoy, who read about her ordeal one morning in a newspaper, tracked her down and filmed Saba’s story over eight or nine months in 2014.
In Pakistan, a loophole in the law allows the perpetrators of so-called honor killings to get off scot-free if they are pardoned by their family.
Saba initially seeks a conviction, but eventually relents under the weight of pressure from her brother-in-law and community elders, who say it is better to resolve enmity than let it fester.
Obaid-Chinoy wants to change that.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hosted a screening of the film in Islamabad last week and has promised to rid Pakistan of the crime by tightening up legislation.
Obaid-Chinoy said she had hoped for a positive response, but admitted such an unprecedented reaction had taken her by surprise.
“If we get this law passed, it will be all worth it,” she said by telephone from Los Angeles after flying in from Pakistan, battling jet lag and an avalanche of pre-Oscar publicity.
“The biggest victory would be to get the legislation passed — to take forgiveness off the table, to have a law that deters killing women in the name of honor and for people to realize that this is a serious crime.”
“I think if the film were to win an Academy Award, then the issue of honor killing, which does not just affect women in Pakistan, but affects women around the world, would really gain traction,” she said.
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