THE WOMAN WHO SAVED OUR FACE

Audience, both national and international, showered Pakistani documentary-maker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy who has brought the first OSCAR to Pakistan for her documentary ‘Saving Face’ with praises and hoped that this award would serve a bigger purpose than being just a trophy.
For the first time in the history of the Academy Awards a Pakistani filmmaker was nominated for an Oscar. The 2012 Oscar’s “Best Documentary Short” category features a 40 minute short film by journalist and investigative filmmaker Sharmeen. Pakistanis, especially exuberant, lauded Sharmeen’s effort to improve the image of the country through her work on woman empowerment and social injustice. Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz has also congratulated Sharmeen and said Sharmeen had made the nation proud and her talent had been recognised at an international level.
“This award is a proof that Pakistanis do not lag in any field and all of them, especially the women, are gifted,” Shahbaz said.
Sharmeen has got her chunk of criticism too, with some people thinking that the subject she had chosen was not ‘important enough’.
“Have we ever seen a documentary on the rape victims of the US, or the attitude of the US towards Red Indians, or the atrocities of Indians in Kashmir? The West was quick to reward a documentary that shows a very bleak side of our country,” said Hassan Siddique, an MPhil student. The documentary chronicles the work of British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad, who performed reconstructive surgery on survivors of acid attacks in Pakistan.
More than 100 people, mainly women and girls, are disfigured in acid attacks every year in Pakistan, although groups helping survivors say many more cases go unreported.
Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted last year by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, with acid attacks a common means of punishing alleged transgressions. Victims are often permanently blinded, and their scar tissue can become infected with septicemia or gangrene. A girl in the documentary describes how she was burned after rejecting the advances of her teacher. She was 13 at the time.
Another woman featured in the film is 25-year-old Rukhsana, whose husband threw acid on her, and her sister-in-law doused her in gasoline before her mother-in-law lit a match and set her on fire. Her story was left unfinished in the film. “I spoke with Rukhsana before I left,” Sharmeen said. “She is trying to make enough money to build her own home for herself and her children without her husband. She’s awaiting her final surgery.” ‘Saving Face’ is set to air on American cable television network HBO on March 8, while Junge and Sharmeen also plan to show it in Pakistan.
“We’re going to try to find the best possible way to show the film while ensuring that the women in the film are safe,” she said.
Before attending the ceremony in Los Angeles, Sharmeen said she hoped the cases in her film would resonate for others in Pakistan.
“It is a story of hope with a powerful message for the Pakistani audience. I felt this would be a great way to show how Pakistanis can help other Pakistanis overcome their problems,” she said.
Sharmeen’s films have won international acclaim. Her 2010 documentary, ‘Pakistan’s Taliban Generation’, won an International Emmy Award. She said her next project is developing a television series about “people in Pakistan who are doing incredible work and trying to change their communities.”
“This win is a testament that Pakistanis can do anything,” she added.
“We had a global audience and people heard our message. Despite our problems there are people trying to effect change.”
The documentary competed against “God Is the Bigger Elvis,” a Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson film about a mid-century starlet who chose the church over Hollywood, “The Barber of Birmingham,” a Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday film that follows the life of 85-year-old barber James Armstrong and the legacy of the civil rights movement, James Spione’s war film “Incident in New Baghdad”, and “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom,” a film by Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen that follows survivors of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and their struggle to recover from the wave that crushed their homes.