Pak filmmaker wins Oscar for honour-killing documentary

Islamabad: Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on Monday won the best documentary short award at the 88th Academy Awards for ‘A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness’ - a film about a Pakistan woman who survived an honour-killing.

This is the second time that the 37-year-old Pakistani filmmaker has won an Oscar award. She previously received the award in the same category in 2012 for her documentary ‘Saving Face’. “This is what happens when determined women get together,” Ms Chinoy said in her acceptance speech after receiving the award, thanking “all the brave men out there, and my husband, who push women to go to school and work.”

The documentary tells the real-life story of an 18-year-old Pakistani girl who survives her own family’s attempts to kill her for their ‘honour’ after she elopes with a man she falls in love with. “This week the Pakistani Prime Minister has said that he will change the law on honour killing after watching this film. That is the power of film," she said. "I think that that's a win in itself because it's such a difficult topic and people shy away from it, normally,” she added.

Earlier in 2012, Chinoy won the Oscar for her documentary film ‘Saving Face’ that focused on Pakistan’s another grim issue of disfiguring of the faces of girls and women by men on various pretexts by throwing acid at them. ‘A Girl In The River: The Price Of Forgiveness’ was among five films which were nominated for this year's Academy Award in the Best Documentary- Short Subject category.