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Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy should be a household name. She's won two Academy Awards– bagging her second one just last night for best documentary short for A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness. She's among a tiny handful of female filmmakers of color in an industry that is plagued by lack of diversity. And she was the only woman of color honored during the 88th Academy Awards, for a film that could revise a barbaric law that allows family members to murder women.
Obaid-Chinoy's acceptance speech alone shows how much film can influence society for the better.
"This week, the Pakistani
The 37-year-old director's film follows the harrowing tale of Saba Qaiser, a 19-year-old from Punjab, Pakistan, who was shot in the face by male family members and thrown in a river to die, for marrying without her family's consent. Qaiser survived the ordeal and even though her father and uncle were arrested, she was pressured to publicly 'forgive' them. Under Pakistani law, her forced pardon resulted in her perpetrators walking scot-free.
In Pakistan, about 500 girls and women are murdered every year in "honor killings," for refusing to submit to an arranged marriage, marrying of their own will, or for alleged infidelity. Those are official estimates–unofficial numbers run into the thousands. A change in the law could be monumental for the country: even among families that wouldn't kill a woman, the fear and threat of honor killings can often loom large.
Lack of women of color at the Academy Awards
One couldn't escape the viral social media hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, in the lead up to the Academy Awards. Social justice–sexual abuse, climate change, and particularly, lack of diversity featured as themes throughout the ceremony. But it was hard not to wonder if the sentiment was meaningless; as nominations were announced on stage, yet another white man's face appeared. Even host Chris Rock's impassioned monologues about Hollywood's lack of diversity couldn't change the fact that only 16% of winners were nonwhite. The controversy is nothing new; last year's Academy Awards also snubbed actors and directors of color.
Beyond racial equity being the right thing to do, not catering films to the changing American audiences is a lost business opportunity. When Rock screened a clip of his interviews with a handful of black moviegoers, none had heard of film titles with multiple Oscar nominations, including "The Big Short" and "Spotlight." Albeit a humorous ploy to entertain, the clip revealed the chasm between the white elitism of the entertainment industry and people of color, the fastest-growing demographic in this country.
And while diversity on screen is important–no black actors were nominated for an Oscar this year–it is equally vital to focus on increasing numbers of women and people of color behind the camera. The situation is dire: Women comprise just 7% of the directors responsible for the top 250 films in Hollywood, and 13% of directors of the top 700 films, according to a study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television in Film. Narrow that further by women directors of color, and the statistics are abysmal. This year, Pakistan-born Obaid-Chinoy was the only woman of color to win an Academy Award. She was among five winners of color in total, including fellow documentary-maker Asif Kapadia (Amy) and director Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant). Mexican director Iñárritu was the only person of color to penetrate a top category, and like the Pakistani filmmaker, it was his second nomination and win.
Why do we need more women filmmakers? Obaid-Chinoy's acceptance speech had some insight for Hollywood. Raising her award, she said: "This is what happens when determined women get together." But it's not just the accolade that she was referring to. When women get together, she said–including Saba, the film's brave protagonist and producers Sheila Nevins and Tina Brown–in tandem with male allies, they're able to create "a more just society for women."
