Rewarded again

Habiba Nosheen has won Emmy for ‘Outstanding research’ under the news and documentary subsection of the awards.

In recent years, there has been a flowering in the independent film industry in Pakistan, particularly in the documentary genre, and films with a Pakistan theme made by teams of people that have many with their origins in Pakistan are winning international awards. It is now two years since Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Academy Award for her searing portrayal of women hideously scarred by having acid thrown on their faces. Now, another Pakistani filmmaker — and another woman — has won an Emmy award for her work as the researcher and co-director along with Hilke Schelmann of the documentary Outlawed in Pakistan. The film took five years to make and chronicles the struggle of a young woman seeking justice after she was gang-raped at the age of 13 by four men. Habiba Nosheen won the Emmy for ‘Outstanding research’ under the news and documentary subsection of the awards.

The film deals with a difficult subject matter and lays bare the hypocrisies and double standards that are associated with the crime of rape in Pakistan. The law is widely flouted, women who stand up to their rapists like Kainat Soomro whose fight for justice is the thread that runs throughout, often find themselves targets for vilification by misogynists. Ms Soomro’s stand has seen her family persecuted, her brother murdered and her family hounded out of its home and forced to relocate to Karachi. Those who make uncomfortable films about the darknesses at the heart of Pakistani society are also open to abuse. Some question as to why films such as Saving Face and Outlawed in Pakistan are made in the first place, that these films invite national disgrace and shame, and are best not seen by a wider public. We would argue that it is for those very reasons that such documentary films are vital tools in the struggle to bring a greater sense of maturity to our lives. These films are discomforting mirrors held up to the face of a state that has never been good at looking inwards, and owning the horrors beneath. Bravo Habiba Nosheen, may you long continue to create discomfort.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2014.

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