Sharmeen’s documentary on honour killing nominated for Oscars

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary on honour killings in Pakistan, “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” has been nominated for the 88th Academy Awards in the short documentary category.

This is the second documentary by the Pakistani filmmaker that has been nominated for the prestigious awards. Her first nomination “Saving Face” had won the Academy Award in 2012, the first for Pakistan.

The ceremony for the 88th Academy Awards is scheduled to be held on February 28.

Chinoy is one of only eleven female directors who have won an Oscar for a non-fiction film.

She described the nomination as an “opportunity for Pakistan to acknowledge honour killing as a problem and address it immediately”.

#Pakistan we are going to the#oscars

— Sharmeen Obaid (@sharmeenochinoy) January 14, 2016

“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 honour in an honour killing. We will send out a strong message that this heinous crime is not a part of our culture or religion,” she said.

Next step is to push all the politicians to call a joint session & get the anti honor crime bill passed that has lapsed in parliament!

— Sharmeen Obaid (@sharmeenochinoy) January 14, 2016

The documentary is a joint production of Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (SOC) Films and Home Box Office (HBO).

PM congratulates Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy on the nomination. According to a PM House statement, the Prime Minister said that honour killings, the theme of the film, afflicted several segments of the Pakistani society.

He also expressed the government’s commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation.

The Prime Minister said that Chinoy’s insights could prove very useful in this connection.

PM Nawaz Sharif invited Sharmeen Chinoy to the Prime Minister’s House for the first screening of her film.

The country’s leading opinion makers from different segments of the society, academics and intellectuals would also be invited to the screening.