Another Pakistani documentary by Sharmeen Obaid nominated for Oscar

Oscar winner Pakistani film maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy after a press conference in Karachi on March 10, 2012. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won Pakistan’s first ever Oscar in the short documentary category with her film “Saving Face” about survivors of acid attacks and British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad, who returned to his homeland to help restore their faces and lives. (Xinhua/Arshad)

Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ’s documentary on honor killing, “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness”, has been nominated in the ‘Best Documentary – Short’ subject category for the 88th Academy Awards.

Chinoy previously won Pakistan’s first Academy Award for her documentary ‘Saving Face’ at the 84th Annual Academy Awards in 2012. She described the nomination as an “opportunity for Pakistan to acknowledge honor killing as a problem and address it immediately.”

“I am delighted that my documentary has been nominated for an Academy Award. This film and its message is incredibly important to me. This is an opportunity for Pakistan to acknowledge that it has a problem and to address it with urgency because there is no honor in an honor killing. We will send out a strong message that this heinous crime is not a part of our culture or religion,” said Chinoy.

A Girl in the River is a joint production of Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (SOC) Films and Home Box Office (HBO), and follows the life of an 18-year-old girl who is a survivor of an honor killing attempt.

Honor killing is a pressing issue in Pakistan as more than a 1,000 women fall prey to this practice each year, usually at the hands of their own family members.

The film was jointly produced by journalist Tina Brown and documentary producer Sheila Nevins.

One of Chinoy’s documentaries ‘Song of Lahore’, in which she shares directorial credits with Andy Shocken, received a standing ovation at Tribeca Film Festival. She has also won an Emmy award for her documentary ‘Children of Taliban’.