Oscar goes to Pakistan film on ‘honor killings’

But while other Oscar nominees obsess about hair and make-up, the 37-year-old filmmaker has a much bigger fight on her hands: how to stop honor killings in Pakistan.

“The Price Of Forgiveness” was among five films which were nominated for this year’s Academy Award in the Best Documentary-Short Subject category. Somehow, she is able to survive this ordeal but the law of the land is unable to provide poor Saba with any justice. “That is the power of film”.

These are the first Academy Award nominations and win for Kapadia and Gay-Rees.

Altering the law to remove the possibility of “forgiveness” could help reduce the number of honour killings in Pakistan, advocates of such a change say.

The brutal tradition allows murderers to avoid punishment if they are forgiven by the family of their victims. On the occasion, Premier Nawaz Sharif had said the government is set to formulate legislation to put a curb on the killings of women in the name of honour.

The filmmaker told AFP she had hoped for a positive response but admitted such an unprecedented reaction had taken her by surprise.

Obaid-Chinoy has been here before. After giving a shout-out to HBO president Sheila Nevins, journalist Tina Brown, and “the men who champion women”, Obaid-Chinoy made it clear that films like hers are only achieved if women work to make them happen.

Obaid-Chinoy grew up in Karachi and studied in America, but is proud to live in Pakistan, believing the onus is on people like her to help the country improve.

Rights groups estimate that about 1,000 Pakistani women are killed every year for “bringing shame” to their families. “We just wanted to make a film to show the world who she really was”, Kapadia said in his acceptance speech.