- ‘Saving Face’ filmmakers Daniel Junge, left, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy accept their Oscar for best documentary short at the 84th Annual Academy Awards.
And the award went to Pakistan at Sunday night’s 84th annual Academy Awards.
“Saving Face,” a film about a British-Pakistani plastic surgeon, Mohammad Jawad who cares for the victims of acid attacks in Pakistan, won the Oscar for best documentary short.
The award was received by the film’s two co-directors, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daniel Junge, who attended the event in Hollywood, California. The night marked a double win for Pakistan: not only is Ms. Obaid-Chinoy the first Pakistani to win an Oscar, but this is the first time the country has received an Academy Award.
The 33-year-old Ms. Obaid-Chinoy dedicated her award to “all the women in Pakistan working for change.” She added, “Don’t give up your dreams. This is for you.”
The film centers on the work of Mohammad Jawad, a doctor who offers reconstructive surgery to women victims of acid burns in Pakistan. It also follows the story of one woman who fights to see her attackers are imprisoned.
The Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy film follows British plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad, who returns to his homeland to help victims of acid burns. The film follows one woman as she fights to see that the perpetrators of the crime are imprisoned for life.
The documentary competed against “God Is the Bigger Elvis,” a Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson film about a mid-century starlet who chose the church over Hollywood; “The Barber of Birmingham,” a Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday film that follows the life of 85-year-old barber James Armstrong and the legacy of the civil rights movement; James Spione’s war film “Incident in New Baghdad”; and “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom,” a film by Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen that follows survivors of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and their struggle to recover from the wave that crushed their homes and lives.
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