‘Saving Face’ Filmmaker on Shooting Documentaries in Pakistan

Last year, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a Pakistani filmmaker, won an International Emmy for “Pakistan’s Taliban Generation,” her documentary focusing on young Taliban recruits in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

A new project of hers, in collaboration with Daniel Junge, is “Saving Face,” about a British-Pakistani plastic surgeon who treats Pakistani victims of acid attacks. The film follows some of these women as they grapple with what happened to them. “Saving Face,” which will air on HBO next year, has been shortlisted for the Oscars in the “Best Documentary, Short Subject” category.

Ms. Obaid-Chinoy, 33 years old, talked about “Saving Face” and “Taliban Generation,” how she films controversial interviews and why she wishes she’d made “City of God.”

Washington, DC (PRWEB) December 16, 2011

Aren’t Americans the good guys? Don’t they come to the aid of the poor and dislocated whenever there is a disaster in any part of the world? Americans, after all, saved millions of Muslims from slaughter in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s. It was Americans who rushed massive medical and financial aid to Pakistan in the wake of 2004’s devastating earthquake. And wasn’t it the United States who provided food and shelter to the millions of Muslims displaced when the Taliban took over Pakistan’s Swat Valley?

But, as veteran journalist Irfan Husain points out in his important new book, Fatal Faultlines: Pakistan, Islam and the West (Arc Manor, paper, $19.95), there are two sides to every story. And whether or not you agree with the grievances of terrorists nursing fifteen-hundred year-old grudges, it’s always a good idea to know what someone who hates you is thinking. Because, as Husain so clearly points out, even though only the tiniest minority of Muslims may be terrorists, they have the hearts and minds of over a billion Muslims around the world who feel that Americans are decidedly not the “good guys” we see ourselves to be.

Excerpt: Ahmed Rashid’s ‘Pakistan on the Brink’

Preface

IN JANUARY 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first black president of the United States, hopes of Americans and Europeans were high that he would make a greater U.S. commitment to Afghanistan in terms of money, troops, economic development, and state building — and above all, to finding a political solution to end the war. Obama’s promise to do all of that, and his expressed desire for a regional solution that would bring Afghanistan’s neighbors together in order to help the peace process, were even more welcome.

Obama did commit more of everything to Afghanistan, and many fields (such as education, health, media, the building of a new Afghan Army, and the degrading of Al Qaeda) have seen substantial improvements. However, the country has also seen a steady deterioration at almost every level — military, political, economic, and human. Violence has increased substantially, and the Taliban insurgency is now a nationwide movement. Tragically