New film highlights Pakistani women's stellar anti-polio role

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's 'Across Every Doorway' focuses on challenges faced by vaccination workers

KARACHI:

A new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will focus on four women working to eradicate polio in Pakistan, highlighting the challenges faced by vaccination workers and scientists protecting children from the disease.

Titled Across Every Doorway, the film was announced by SOC Films on October 24 to mark World Polio Day. It follows women working in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Islamabad, documenting their roles in vaccination campaigns, community outreach and laboratory testing.

The documentary explores how health workers deal with vaccine refusals, misinformation and public mistrust, while trying to ensure that every child receives polio drops.

"Behind every door is a family, a conversation, and a child whose future deserves to be protected," Obaid-Chinoy said, adding that the film aimed to bring attention to the women whose work often goes unseen.

In Karachi, Fouzia Ahmed, an area supervisor with the World Health Organisation's Polio Programme, works with vaccination teams and visits households reluctant to vaccinate their children. The documentary shows how she manages resistance while supporting colleagues who sometimes face verbal abuse and safety concerns.

In Rawalpindi, area coordinator Dr Shumaila Akbar monitors vaccination campaigns and checks whether teams are following required standards. Her work also involves travelling and managing responsibilities in the face of social expectations surrounding women's roles.

The film follows community health worker Laiba Ijaz in Peshawar as she tries to reach children who might otherwise be missed, including newborns and families who have recently moved into the area. Her personal journey, shaped by financial difficulties after her father fell ill, forms another part of the story.

In Islamabad, virology and immunology laboratory scientist Dr Riqba Akhtar tests environmental and human samples for traces of poliovirus. Her work helps authorities monitor the virus and inform responses on the ground.

The documentary also examines how conversations with doctors, religious leaders and local officials can help address concerns about vaccination.

Known for her work in films that highlight the inequality with women, as of 2019, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's accolades include two Academy Awards, seven Emmy Awards and a Knight International Journalism Award. In 2012, the Government of Pakistan honoured her with the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, the second-highest civilian honour of the country. She features in listings of the world's most popular personalities and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.

She received her bachelor's degree in economics and government from the Smith College and two master's degrees from Stanford University. While at Stanford, she made two award-winning films, and upon returning to Pakistan, she launched her career as a filmmaker with her first film Terror's Children (2002) for The New York Times. She went on to win the Emmy Award for Best Documentary for the war-on-terror Pakistan's Taliban Generation (2009). She gained wider recognition for the documentaries Saving Face (2012) and the biographical A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness (2016). For her work in both of these, she won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject Documentary and five Emmy Awards in different categories. She gained wider recognition for making the musical journey Song of Lahore (2015), and the animated 3 Bahadur film series (2015–2018). The latter is the country's first-ever computer-animated feature length film.

Her Academy Award win for Saving Face made her the first Pakistani to win an Academy Award, is one of only eleven female directors who have ever won an Oscar for a non-fiction film and is the first female film director to have won two Academy Awards by the age of 37. She is the first non-American to win the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for Reinventing the Taliban (2003). In 2017, Obaid-Chinoy became the first artist to co-chair the World Economic Forum.

Across Every Doorway is scheduled for release in November 2026.