Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Marks 20 Years of Film and Stories that Matter with Digital Exhibit
This December marks 20 years of storytelling for two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Celebrating this milestone, Obaid-Chinoy and her team present SOC20, a digital exhibit unpacking her creative and personal journey, introducing the audience to not only the outcomes of her work, but also her life-changing and inspirational moments, and pivotal relationships.
SOC20 discusses Obaid-Chinoy’s colleagues, mentors, those who opened doors for her and the organizations and individuals she does the same for. It unfolds the story of a young woman from Karachi, her explorations as a journalist and her quest to tell stories from behind the camera, focusing on subjects that surrounded her in her city of birth. This includes stories of daily injustices, of women and of heroes, eventually unpacking the impact her work has had on public policy and the global positioning of Pakistan.
“It has been 20 years since I began my journey as a filmmaker. The past two decades have presented immense opportunities and challenges alike, these years and the films I made during these years have formed me as a creator, collaborator, director, colleague, parent, and human being,” said Obaid-Chinoy. “As an attempt to document and commemorate this journey and the change-makers, mentors and fellow creators I have worked with, my team and I present #SOC20 : A digital exhibit of 20 years of film and stories that matter.”
Obaid-Chinoy’s first film was for The New York Times, Terror’s Children, in 2002. Since then, she has made over 12 multi-award films across 16 countries. The only female director to have won two Academy Awards by the age of 37, she has also won four Emmys.
Obaid-Chinoy is also the creator of the first Pakistani animation adventure feature film trilogy, 3 Bahadur. Her animated short film, Sitara, is the first Pakistani animation film to be released by Netflix US. Her films also include Student Athlete, A Girl in the River, Song of Lahore, Saving Face, Peace Keepers and Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret.
Earlier this year, Chinoy made global headlines as she became the first director from Pakistan to work with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), where she directed two episodes of the highest-rated MCU show of the year, Ms Marvel — featuring its first-ever Muslim superhero that has roots in Pakistan.
In addition to her work in film, Chinoy has been at the forefront of cultural and historic preservation in Pakistan. As the Patron-in-Chief of the Citizen’s Archive of Pakistan, she started Pakistan’s first and largest oral history archive in Pakistan in 2007.
She took this innovative storytelling project global with Home 1947, an immersive installation that centered on a series of short films featuring families in Pakistan and India, who were among more than 10 million people displaced by partition. The installation has travelled globally and is open to the public at the country’s first National History Museum in Lahore.
Keeping true to her vision of using storytelling mediums to highlight the most pressing issues, her production house, SOC Films, launched a bilingual book in 2022, Pakistan’s Climate Change Heroes, which highlights local climate change heroes and talks about the issues at the grassroots level.
Obaid-Chinoy strongly believes in giving back to the community of storytellers which is why she also launched Patakha Pictures where she provides mentorship and funding to young women filmmakers. In November, she announced Pakistan’s largest filmmaking grant for women, Rs10 million, for the program’s third round.
Not only did she launch different initiatives, she was the first artist to have co-chaired the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, she is also the recipient of the Hilal-e-Imtiaz and among TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Her accolades include Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Canadian government for work in the field of documentary films, Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum, Knight International Journalism Award by International Center for Journalists for work that led to legislative change, Honorary Degree in Fine Arts from Smith College, the Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Asia Game Changer Award and the first non-American to win the Livingston Award for young journalists. - Images
