Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary, A Girl in the River:
The Price of Forgiveness has won an Oscar award in the Best
Documentary - Short subject category at the 88th Academy Awards.
Indeed Obaid-Chinoy previously won Pakistan’s first Academy Award
for her
documentary Saving Face at the 84th Annual Academy Awards in 2012.
She is one of only eleven female directors who have ever won an Oscar for a
non-fiction film and the only Pakistani to win two Academy Awards.
The category of Best Documentary (Short) was
presented by Louis C.K to Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. Upon
receiving the award, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy said: “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!”
The 88th Academy
Awards ceremony was held at the historic Dolby (Kodak) Theatre in Hollywood,
California with Chris Rock as host. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy wore a custom made
outfit by Pakistan’s leading contemporary fashion house, Sana Safinaz, with
jewellery exclusively designed for Sharmeen for the occasion by Kiran Aman of
Kiran Fine Jewellery.
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