5 Things You Did Not Know About Two-Time Academy Award Winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy

BY NAMRATA KARKHANIS Monday, 29 February 2016
Sharmeen was awarded the Oscar in the category Best Documentary – Short Subject for her documentary A Girl in the River, which follows the life of an 18-year-old girl who is a survivor of an honour killing attempt.
Who better than two-time Academy Award winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy to remind us about the power of cinema to make tangible changes in people’s lives? The first ever Pakistani woman to collect her second Oscar for her powerful short documentary, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, a film that highlights the still-common practice of “honor killings,” in which men kill their own female family members for dishonoring them, launched a powerful speech in Los Angeles saying, “This is what happens when determined women get together.” She added, This week the Pakistani Prime Minister has said that he will change the law on honor killing after watching this film. That is the power of film.”
Here are 5 things that Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is best known for:
1. She was the first Pakistani to win an Oscar (for Saving Face) one of only eleven female directors who have ever won an Oscar for a non-fiction film.
2. Along with being a Pakistani jouranlist and activist, she is also the first non-American to win the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
3. In 2012 Sharmeen was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine
4. In 2012 Sharmeen was conferred with the highest civilian award, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, for bringing honor to Pakistan as a filmmaker
5. In 2015, Sharmeen directed Pakistan’s first animated movie 3 Bahadur,a film dedicated to inculcating bravery in the youth of Pakistan