New fellowship for Pakistan’s emerging women documentary filmmakers announced | The Express Tribune

KARACHI:

Two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has announced the eight fellows selected for the latest edition of Patakha Pictures’ Claim the Frame programme, which will support four documentary films by emerging women filmmakers from across Pakistan.

The five-month fellowship, launched in partnership with the Scottish Documentary Institute and the British Council, will provide funding and mentorship to filmmakers exploring themes including climate change, identity, resilience and social change. This year’s documentaries will focus on stories ranging from Pakistan’s first female drifter and climate-induced child marriage in Sindh to maternal healthcare in the remote Shimshal Valley.

The selected fellows come from Lahore, Karachi, Hunza and Chitral and will begin the programme on 15 July, with their projects culminating in a showcase in Karachi later this year.

Announcing the new cohort, Obaid-Chinoy said the initiative had helped Pakistani filmmakers gain international recognition.

“When you back Pakistani talent, the world pays attention. Claim the Frame is the next chapter in this journey, giving a new cohort of storytellers the resources and platform to share their truths with the world,” she said.

Since its launch in 2022, Patakha Pictures says it has supported 69 emerging filmmakers, whose documentaries have won more than 25 awards and screened at over 70 international film festivals.

Obaid-Chinoy was born on 12 November 1978 in Karachi, Pakistan. She is a Gujarati Muslim. Her mother Saba Obaid is a social worker, and her father Sheikh Obaid was a businessman. She has four younger sisters, including Mahjabeen Obaid, and a younger brother. Obaid-Chinoy attended Convent of Jesus and Mary, followed by schooling at Karachi Grammar School, where she was a class-fellow of Kumail Nanjiani. According to her, she was not inclined toward academics but received good grades. She asked many questions about the world, so her mother suggested that she put her questions in writing. Obaid-Chinoy wrote to a local English-language newspaper, and by the age of 17 was doing investigative reporting for it.

Obaid-Chinoy moved to the United States to attend Smith College, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in Economics and Government in 2002. Later, she received two master’s degrees from Stanford University in Communication and International Policy Studies. Following her education, she moved to Toronto with her husband Fahd Chinoy, and as of 2015 divided her time between Karachi and Toronto. She became a Canadian citizen in 2004.

In 2002, Obaid-Chinoy returned to Pakistan, and launched her career as a filmmaker with her first film Terror’s Children for The New York Times. In 2003 and 2004 she made two award-winning films while a graduate student at Stanford University. She then began a long association with the PBS TV series Frontline World, where she reported “On a Razor’s Edge” in 2004 and went on over the next 5 years to produce many broadcast reports, online videos and written “Dispatches” from Pakistan. Her most notable films include Children of the Taliban, The Lost Generation, Afghanistan Unveiled, 3 Bahadur, Song of Lahore and the Academy Award-winning Saving Face and A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness. Her visual contributions have earned her numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Short Subject Documentary (2012 and 2016) and the Emmy Award in the same category (2010 and 2011) and the One World Media Award for Broadcast Journalist of the Year (2007). Her films have been aired on several international channels, including the PBS, CNN, Discovery Channel, Al Jazeera English and Channel 4.

Obaid-Chinoy has won seven Emmy Awards, including two in the International Emmy Award for Current Affairs Documentary category. Her Academy Award win for Saving Face made her the first Pakistani to win an Academy Award, and one of only 11 female directors to ever win an Oscar for a non-fiction film.